Eat Slower to Avoid Diabetes
Being a pharmacist for many years means that I've been "trained" to eat quickly, before a patient walked into the store. Furthermore, a long time pharmacy "myth" is "if you want people to walk into the store, order a hot meal." Other than causing a little indigestion, eating fast hasn't bothered me. But now, a new study suggests that fast eaters have a higher risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes.
According to the Japanese study, people who eat food quickly are twice as likely to develop impaired glucose tolerance, known as pre-diabetes. In impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), blood glucose levels are higher than usual, but not high enough to cause diabetes. However, without proper treatment, 40 to 50 per cent of people with IGT will develop Type 2 Diabetes within ten years. One theory is that eating quickly increases postprandial blood glucose, the amount of sugar in the blood soon after eating.
