New research from St. Michael's Hospital suggests canola oil
should also be one of the oils of choice for people with Type 2 diabetes. Dr.
David Jenkins, head of the hospital's Clinical Nutrition and Risk Factor
Modification Centre, compared people with Type 2 diabetes who ate either a low
glycemic index diet that included bread made with canola oil, or a whole wheat
diet known to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
His
study, published June 14, 2014 in
the journal Diabetes Care, found that those on the canola bread diet
experienced both a reduction in blood glucose levels and a significant
reduction in LDL, or "bad," cholesterol.
Even
more exciting, he said, was the finding that the canola bread diet seemed to
have the most significant impact on people who needed help the most – those
whose HbA1c test measuring blood glucose over the previous two or three months
was highest.
Dr.
Jenkins, who is a professor of both nutritional sciences and medicine at the
University of Toronto, said the reduction in LDL cholesterol observed in his
study of 141 people could translate into a 7 per cent reduction in
cardiovascular events. He said the benefit could also be translated into an
additional 20mg dose of one of the cholesterol-reducing drugs known as
statins—a doubling of a standard dose.
The
word canola is a contraction of Canada and ola, meaning oil. It was developed
from rapeseed at the University of Manitoba in the 1970s. Canola oil contains
only 7 per cent saturated fat, less than half that of olive oil, widely touted
for its health benefits.
Dr.
Jenkins said another interesting finding of the study was that patients on the
whole wheat diet seemed to have better blood flow after 12 weeks than those on
the canola bread diet, as measured by the EndoPat test that uses a cuff on the
arm similar to a blood pressure test. He said the significance of that finding
was not entirely clear, but this positive result may be an indication of why
whole wheat foods have consistently been shown to reduce the risk of
cardiovascular disease.
Dr.
Jenkins and his colleagues developed the concept of the glycemic index in the
early 1980s as a way of explaining how different carbohydrates affect blood
glucose and to find out which foods were best for people with diabetes. High GI
foods—such as white bread, most breakfast cereals, potatoes and rice — produce
a large rise in blood glucose and insulin, which may damage eyes, kidneys and heart.
The carbohydrates in low GI foods—including pasta, beans, lentils, berries,
apples and certain whole grains such as barley and oats –are broken down more
slowly, so that people get more gentle raises in blood glucose and insulin and
so get less tissue damage to eyes and kidneys etc.
Other
studies have linked low GI diets with a reduction in both diabetes and
cardiovascular events, and have shown monounsaturated fats such as canola and
olive oil reduced the risk of cardiovascular disease. Dr. Jenkins said the
combination of a low GI diet supplemented with canola oil had not been tested
before on people with Type 2 diabetes.
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