WESTERN PRODUCER — In 2015, about 3.4 million Canadians had diabetes. That’s around 9.3 percent of the population.
By 2025, it’s expected that 12.1 percent of Canadians will have the disease, or five million people, based on estimates from Diabetes Canada.
To reverse or slow that trend, Canadians may want to include a half cup of black beans in their daily diet.
U.S. Department of Agriculture research has shown that one serving of black beans per day reduced insulin resistance in obese mice by 87 percent.
“Insulin resistance is when a body’s response to the hormone insulin is impaired, so glucose in the blood cannot be used for energy,” the USDA said in a news release.
If glucose in the blood is not converted to energy, it causes high blood sugar and possibly diabetes.
USDA scientists from Albany, California, led the study into black beans and diabetes.
“The anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory effects of diets enriched with cooked, whole common beans such as black turtle bean, have not been well studied,” the researchers said in a paper published in 2021.
The scientists found that whole and cooked black beans, combined with a high fat diet, seemed to have the greatest impact on the mice in the study.
“We also tested if supplementing the high fat diet with individual components from black beans would have the same beneficial impacts on the obese mice. (We) didn’t find the same effects at all. It was only adding whole black beans, and cooked whole beans at that, which had the benefits,” said Wallace Yokoyama, the USDA scientist who led the research.
The researchers don’t fully understand why or how black beans are affecting insulin resistance.
It’s possible that the black beans are controlling inflammation.
“Chronic inflammation is believed to be the basis for insulin resistance and other metabolic diseases,” the USDA said in its release. “Intestinal bacteria associated with inflammation… were significantly reduced in mice fed the high fat plus black beans diet, compared to mice on the high fat diet without beans.”
More research is needed but eating more black beans is probably a safe decision. It’s already known that black beans, and other beans, contain antioxidants, fibre and protein.
A diet loaded with beans could reduce the risk of certain cancers, especially cancers of the stomach, kidney and colon, says webmd.com.
As well, the anti-oxidants and zinc in black beans may improve eye health, reducing the likelihood of cataracts or macular degeneration.
