When it comes to the dieting game, carbohydrates are a super villain. Sure, bread, pasta, cookies, and candy may taste good. But they’ll also make you fat quick wreaking havoc with your blood sugar in the process.
If you’ve tried to kick the highcarb habit, then you know it’s a lot easier said than done. But what if you could erase the impact of those blood-sugar-busting foods…and still eat what you want… just by taking a single natural supplement?
This may sound too good to be true – but it’s not. In fact, a recently published paper reveals that the diet-free secret to slashing carbs could actually be hiding in a most unlikely place: the northern kidney bean.
Why kidney beans? Evidence suggests that an extract of Phaseolus vulgarus (also known as the canellini bean) can inhibit amylase – an enzyme found in your pancreas and saliva that’s responsible for breaking down starches and turning them into glucose for your body. In short: If amylase is blocked, so is your sugar uptake – regardless of how many carbs you may have piled on your plate. And the impact this can have on your blood sugar levels is significant, as preliminary clinical trials show.
On two separate occasions a full week apart, researchers gave 11 subjects (who had been fasting overnight) four slices of white bread, along with two tablespoons of margarine and four grams of artificial sweetener. The subjects were divided into two groups: One that received 1.5 grams of kidney bean extract with the experimental meal, and the control group that did not. Blood sugar levels were evaluated prior to the meal, and again at 15-minute intervals for the two hours that followed.
Results showed that subjects who took the white kidney bean extract experienced a significantly smaller spike in blood sugar – and that their levels returned to normal more quickly than subjects who ate the meal alone. In fact, calculations showed that the kidney bean extract group absorbed 66 percent less sugar from the meal – group – meaning that the canellini bean extract inhibited the uptake of a whopping two-thirds of the experimental meal’s starch content.1
Similar results were reflected in a smaller study, this time examining the blood sugar of seven subjects in the hour following a large, balanced meal containing fiber, sugars, starch, fat, and protein. While too small to be considered statistically significant, the findings of this study nevertheless indicate that white kidney bean extract can reduce post-meal glucose fluctuations by as much as 44 percent.1
This news gives the term "magic beans" a whole new meaning. But there’s nothing magical at all about this clinically proven, carbblocking white kidney bean extract – in fact, you can find it today as a supplement called Phase 2, from Vitamin Research Products.
Reference:
1. Vinson JA, Al Kharrat H, and Shuta D. Investigation of an Amylase Inhibitor on Human Glucose Absorption after Starch Consumption. The Open Nutraceuticals Journal. 2009; 2: 88-91.
