Does pumpkin raise blood sugar or lower blood sugar? The answer is different from yours, sugar friends may wish to take a look!

Many health articles claim that pumpkin contains many beneficial ingredients, including dietary fiber and pumpkin polysaccharides. Eating pumpkin regularly can not only control weight, but also reduce blood sugar, blood lipids and blood pressure.

　　This has given hope to many diabetic patients. After all, diabetes requires strict diet control, and the taste of pumpkin is sweet and glutinous. Since it will not raise blood sugar, it is enough to eat more naturally.

　　But can pumpkin really lower blood sugar?

　　First of all, everyone must understand that the so-called diabetes actually refers to a metabolic disease with elevated blood sugar as a typical symptom . Its appearance is related to multiple factors, such as pancreatic islet function damage and insufficient sensitivity of cells to insulin.

　　So far , although a variety of hypoglycemic drugs and insulin have been developed clinically, their value is to control blood sugar, and they have not played a role in curing diabetes. Therefore, diabetes can also be regarded as a long-term or even lifelong metabolic disease.

　　After diabetes occurs, in order to stabilize blood sugar in an all-round way, patients should not only strictly follow the doctor's recommendations. At the same time, patients also need to adjust from the two aspects of diet and exercise. Diet control is not to make patients go on a complete hunger strike or just to be vegetarian, but to control the total calorie intake of three meals and avoid high-glycemic foods on the basis of balanced nutrition.

　　The so-called high glycemic refers to the glycemic index and calories of food . The rumor that pumpkin can lower blood sugar actually originated from an experimental study abroad. Scientists found that pumpkin polysaccharide exists in pumpkin.

This substance has shown a significant effect of lowering blood sugar in experimental mice . However, this is only an animal experiment, and has not been tested in clinical patients.

　　Moreover , it doesn't really make much sense to talk about the effect directly beyond the dose . This experiment was carried out by purifying pumpkin polysaccharide. The content of polysaccharide in pumpkin is quite low. If it is converted into the amount of pumpkin polysaccharide needed by the human body, the patient needs to eat a lot of pumpkin to have an effect.

　　However, no matter if any food is eaten beyond the standard, it means the excessive absorption of sugar and calories, which obviously has no effect on blood sugar control!

　　Let's look at the glycemic index . Usually, foods with a glycemic index below 55 are low-glycemic foods, and foods below 40 are safe foods that diabetics can eat. However, everyone must clearly recognize that low-glycemic foods refer to types that do not cause blood sugar fluctuations or have little effect on blood sugar , not that low-glycemic foods can lower blood sugar.

　　According to different types of pumpkins and different growth periods, the sugar content of pumpkins is about 3-15%, and the glycemic index reaches about 65-75. This means that pumpkin is originally a high-glycemic index food. Soft and waxy pumpkin is not only easy to digest and has a high absorption rate after eating, but also causes postprandial blood sugar fluctuations.

　　Of course, this does not mean that diabetics should never eat pumpkin, but they should choose the correct way to eat them!

　　You know, although pumpkin is rich in carbohydrates and sugars, there is also a lot of dietary fiber in pumpkin, which tastes relatively good. Eating pumpkin can not only increase the feeling of fullness, but also supplement various vitamins, carotene and protein and other nutrients needed by the human body.

　　So diabetics can eat pumpkin, but not as a side dish or typical, but as a food!

　　That is to say, sugar lovers can use pumpkin as a staple food in their meals and reduce the intake of other staple foods. For example, if everyone eats about 100 grams of pumpkin for dinner, the intake of other staple foods should be reduced by 20 grams.

　　At the same time, patients should not eat pumpkin frequently. Nutrition recommends that patients with diabetes should eat pumpkin 1-2 times a week, and maintain at 100-200 grams each time.