Disclaimer: The findings discussed are lab based and further studies need to be done.
Did you ever think that you could fight high blood sugar with some things as sugary and delicious as maple syrup?
Certain compounds in maple syrup work to combat high blood sugar by preventing large sugars to be broken down into smaller sugars that are absorbed easily into the bloodstream. If large sugars are prevented from being broken down, they simply go through your gastrointestinal tract, without getting absorbed into the bloodstream, which eventually leads to them getting excreted from your body.
A study published in the Journal of Functional Foods by the University of Rhode Island researchers analyzed maple syrup’s ability to inhibit these sugar breakdown activities.
The findings suggest that natural inhibitors, like the compounds found in maple syrup, are a great therapeutic approach to decreasing blood sugar by stopping the breakdown of large sugars like starch, into smaller sugars like glucose. Starch can’t be absorbed into the bloodstream, while glucose easily can.
Ironically, this means while the sugar is in your body, at the same time it actually isn’t. It’s there, but your body isn’t using it for energy and it cannot be stored as fat.
Maple products really are the “smart” sweetener!
Reference: Emmanouil Apostolidis, Liya Li, Chong Lee, Navindra P. Seeram, In vitro evaluation of phenolic-enriched maple syrup extracts for inhibition of carbohydrate hydrolyzing enzymes relevant to type 2 diabetes management, Journal of Functional Foods, Volume 3, Issue 2, 2011, Pages 100-106.