Paresh Dandona, MD, PhD, has led research showing that taking a fiber supplement can help patients with type 2 diabetes boost their insulin secretion—even after eating a high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal.

The research builds on work Dandona and his team published last year in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. This previous research showed that adding fiber to the diet after high-fat, high-carbohydrate meals—which are known to increase inflammation—will have beneficial anti-inflammatory and metabolic effects.

“Dietary fiber is known to reduce the incidence of diabetes and cardiovascular disease in large epidemiological studies,” says Dandona, SUNY Distinguished Professor and chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Diabetes.

He notes his team at UB provided the first mechanistic evidence—evidence aimed at determining a mechanism—at cellular and molecular levels that fiber exerts an anti-inflammatory effect, lowering glucose levels and boosting insulin concentration in normal subjects.

Studying patients after meals with and without fiber

In the current research, Dandona and his colleagues studied 12 patients at the Clinical Research Center, part of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism.

Levels of blood sugar, insulin, and proteins involved in inflammation were measured in the patients after they consumed a high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal. The same patients consumed the same meal a week later, but this time they also consumed Fiber One, a commercially available supplement, before and after the meal.

“After eating the meal, diabetics’ insulin secretion increased significantly after the fiber. However, this increase wasn’t sufficient to reduce their glucose levels,” Dandona says.

“The meal induces proteins, which interfere with insulin signaling and thus cause insulin resistance. Fiber intake prevents this. This action may potentially prevent diabetes and its further evolution,” he explains.

The fiber supplement also resulted in suppressing comprehensively inflammation and oxidative stress in these patients.

“An increase in dietary content of fiber, whether through food or a supplement, should be encouraged in order to reduce oxidative and inflammatory stress and hence, a tendency to induce insulin resistance,” Dandona says.