High Fat Intake Increases Blood Sugar; Adding Coffee Doubles Blood Sugar Rise

Researchers at the University of Guelph (Marie-Soleil Beaudoin, Lindsey Robinson, Terry Graham) have found that fatty foods in combination with coffee causes a huge increase in blood sugar levels. (1)

This was the first study (published in the Journal of Nutrition) of it's kind, until now we didn't know about the combined effects of fat and coffee on blood sugar.  Hey what you don't know can't hurt you right?

To test things out study subjects consumed fat, then coffee, then sugar.  Researchers then looked at blood sugar levels.

Compared to the baseline response from an oral glucose tolerance test, a test used to measure the bodies response to a fixed amount of sugar intake, consuming fat before consuming sugar made blood sugar increase 32% more than consuming sugar alone.

When fat then coffee were consumed before sugar, blood sugar increased 64% more compared to sugar alone.

So.. is it a good idea to put loads of cream and sugar in a coffee?  How about a nice sausage breakfast with coffee?  Study authors say those at risk of type two diabetes or those with diabetes might want to change their coffee consumption habits.

"No problem, I'll simply wait a few hours between eating my fatty sausage and sipping my daily cup of coffee, can't go without my coffee.."  Yes, I actually had quite a few people say just this when I told them about the study.

In the study though, the fat and coffee were ingested hours apart (6 and 5 respectively), and an hour after the coffee they were fed the sugar.

Though more research is needed to fully explain the result, the study also looked at hormonal responses at the same time and it appears fat and coffee some how blunt the bodies ability to tell itself to remove sugar from the blood; the pancreas may not be getting the message to release insulin. 

Any consumption of high fat or coffee (the study used two cups of coffee) can have severe and long lasting  affects, according to quotes from the researchers in this Science Daily article. So, no, waiting a few hours between chewing the fat and downing the java won't help.  Does this mean we should consider not eating high fat meals? Reducing coffee consumption? Thats crazy!

Or maybe it's crazy not to consider it..

(1) An Oral Lipid Challenge and Acute Intake of Caffeinated Coffee Additively Decrease Glucose Tolerance in Healthy Men