Low-heat cooking may reduce insulin resistance

Traditional Ayurveda cooking has been recommending low heat cooking and now a western study endorses it.

Low-temperature cooking reduces insulin resistance among overweight women as per a 4-week study published online August 19 in Diabetes Care by Alicja B. Mark, PhD, from the department of nutrition, exercise and sports, faculty of science, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and colleagues.

Cooking at high temperature — such as with baking, roasting and frying — induces formation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which are associated with inflammation and believed to impair glucose metabolism in patients with type 2 diabetes. Common high-AGE foods include bakery products, cooked meat, and roasted coffee.

In the study patients randomized to a high-AGE diet were instructed to fry, bake, roast, or grill their food; eat bread with the crust; and choose other high-AGE foods from a list. The low-AGE group was told to boil or steam their food, eat bread without the crust, and choose lower-AGE foods from a list. They were also randomized to supplements of either fructose or glucose.

At 4 weeks, no effect was seen from the fructose or glucose on insulin resistance, as assessed by the homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) and the calculated insulin sensitivity index (ISI) or on any secondary measures. But the AGE content of the diet did make a difference. Weight, BMI, and waist circumference all decreased in both the high- and low-AGE groups, but to a greater degree among those in the low-AGE group compared with the high-AGE group. Overall, the low-AGE group consumed about 15% more protein, 10% more carbohydrates, and 22% less fat than did the high-AGE group.