SUGAR: the hacks
Blood glucose hacks are cute little tricks that you can use to blunt blood glucose spikes. Whether you’re a die-hard sweet freak or a puritanical abstainer, these hacks will improve your life. After all, we all eat sugar (remember: it’s found in all grains, fruits, and veg), and we’d all be better off if we could reduce its negative impact on our bodies.
The hacks I discuss below are the brainchild of biochemist Jessie Inchauspé (aka the Glucose Goddess). While wearing a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) as part of a project at 23andMe, Jessie started noticing correlations between her behavior, the size of her blood glucose spikes, and her well-being. She’s been using CGM data to validate spike-squashing hacks and teach them to the world ever since. Some of the hacks she prescribes are based on conventional wisdom, while others are inspired by niche research. As I see it, Jessie’s gift to mankind is that she’s made these ideas digestible and sticky for us. She uses clear messaging and bold images (e.g., her signature glucose spike graphs) to implant them in our scrolling-addicted minds. And her efforts are changing lives by the millions.
THE HACKS
Below is my take on the blood glucose hacks. (Note: Jessie presents them as ten separate hacks, but my mind lumps them into three.) The hacks are yours to do with as you please. I’m a hardo and I like to use at least one hack per meal, but you can certainly take a more casual approach. The goal is to recognize when you’re about to dump (or have already dumped) a lot of sugar into your body and use a hack to help it process the load.
Hack 1: Pad your gut.
Goal: Reduce the rate at which glucose is dumped into your blood.
Science: Our bodies digest sugars and starches real fast. These carbs are made up of small/simple molecules (i.e., glucose, fructose, lactose) that are easily broken apart, absorbed through the lining of the small intestine, and ferried into the bloodstream. By comparison, protein and fat take much longer to digest. These macros are more complex and must undergo extensive processing before they can be absorbed by the intestine. And fiber never gets digested. Our bodies can’t break it down, so it passes through us largely intact. Fortunately, protein, fat, and fiber slow down the digestion and absorption of everything in the gut. All three of these macros make the stomach empty more slowly, which causes any co-consumed sugar to enter the small intestine more gradually. And soluble fiber offers an additional benefit: it forms a viscous gel (think hydrated chia seeds) that coats the walls of the small intestine and physically blocks the absorption of glucose.
How to: There are several ways to implement this hack, but the most effective is to start your meal with (high-fiber, low-carb) veggies. Said veggies could be an appetizer that you eat while prepping your meal or a component of your meal that you strategically eat first. Alternatively or additionally, you can (a) start your meal with protein/fat, and/or (b) eat protein/fat/fiber along with your carbs. The key is to avoid eating sweet/starchy stuff by itself on an empty stomach. Save sugar bombs to be eaten at the end of a protein/fat/fiber-loaded meal (i.e., as dessert), and “just say no” to sweets at breakfast (see THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY, below).
Hack 2: Contract your muscles.
Goal: Clear excess glucose out of the blood.
Science: Skeletal muscle is a major sink for blood glucose: it sucks up >80% of the glucose we consume. Muscle cells use glucose as their primary source of energy. So, when they are contracting, they deploy extra glucose transporters (i.e., proteins that pump glucose out of the blood and into the cell) to their surface to ensure that they can take in enough fuel. Thus, muscle contraction helps the body pack glucose away into muscle cells and start burning through it.
How to: Based on her CGM data, Jessie recommends moving your body for 10+ minutes after a meal, within 90 minutes of eating (i.e., before your glucose spike peaks). But anything helps, including moving for as little as two minutes and moving before your meal. Any flavor of movement will do. You could walk, squat, lift, dance, hula hoop, play with your dog, or do chores, for example.
Hack 3: Drink vinegar.
Goal: Reduce the rate at which glucose is dumped into your blood AND clear excess glucose out of the blood.
Science: Vinegar is a solution of acetic acid, and acetic acid blunts blood glucose spikes by:
Slowing gastric emptying. The duodenum (i.e., the first stretch of the small intestine) is responsible for neutralizing the stomach acid that is sprayed into the intestine so that it doesn’t damage the intestinal lining. When you eat something acidic, gastric emptying slows down so that your duodenum has time to neutralize the extra acid.
Inhibiting α-amylase activity. α-amylase is the enzyme that initiates starch digestion: it breaks starch down into short chains of glucose. Acetic acid inhibits this enzyme, which causes starch to be broken down more slowly and glucose to be absorbed more gradually (Santos, 2019).
Increasing muscle glucose uptake. Acetic acid stimulates muscle cells to increase their production of glucose transporters, allowing them to suck up glucose from the blood more quickly (Maruta, 2016).
Promoting glycogen production. To protect themselves from the damaging effects of free glucose, cells store glucose as glycogen (a branchy chain of glucose molecules). Acetic acid stimulates glycogen synthesis in both the liver and the muscles (Takashi, 2001), which helps the body to get an influx of glucose safely contained.
How to: You can drink vinegar in the form of a mocktail. (Jessie recommends diluting 1 tablespoon of vinegar in a glass of water.) You can also “drink it” by eating pickles or veggies doused in vinaigrette, which gets you a fiber bonus. Whatever your dosage form, make sure that it doesn’t contain sugar - this is not the time for balsamic or bread & butter pickles. Jessie’s data suggests that drinking vinegar anytime before/during/after a meal is beneficial but that ~10 minutes before is optimal.
THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY
The worst time to eat something sweet/starchy is on an empty stomach, and just before breakfast is when your stomach is at its emptiest. Unfortunately, the American breakfast is dominated by sweet/starchy foods, many of which are essentially candy (looking at you, cereal). And starting the day with a massive sugar spike basically guarantees that you’ll be riding a blood glucose rollercoaster for the rest of the day. Thus, eating a savory breakfast is one of the most powerful things you can do to steady your blood glucose. An ideal breakfast is heavy on protein and fat. Think eggs, avocado, yogurt, salmon. If your breakfast contains more than a few morsels of fruit/starch, use blood glucose hacks to blunt the spike.
GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT
While it’s true that you can use the hacks to reduce the blood-glucose-spiking effect of anything that you consume, the hacks won’t fix a shit diet. Their power over glucose is limited (e.g., eating a couple pickles won’t save you from a Big Gulp-induced spike), and they provide zero protection against the other toxins found all too commonly in our food (e.g., trans fats, dyes, preservatives, herbicides). But the good news is that you can use the hacks to help wean yourself off garbage foods by reducing your cravings for them.
[Speaking of cravings: If you want to ditch your sugar cravings as quickly and painlessly as possible, try using the blood glucose hacks in combination with a sugar detox.]
RESOURCES
To learn more about blood glucose hacks, please check out Jessie Inchauspé’s work. She’s got a resource-packed website, an educational instagram and YouTube channel, and two quirky books. One book (Glucose Revolution) lays out the hacks, while the other (The Glucose Goddess Method) provides detailed instructions (e.g., recipes) for implementing a subset of them. You can also listen to Jessie give her spiel on various podcasts (e.g., On Health).
Happy hacking!
