The content in this article should not be taken as medical advice. Please consult with your healthcare provider regarding your individual health needs.
Like Greek mythology’s Herakles, protein is a hero in the nutrition world because of its important role as a muscle-builder. The very word itself comes from the Greek “proteios,” meaning “of the first rank.”
But is protein good for people with diabetes? Let's uncover how it impacts glucose levels, benefits of high-protein foods, general guidelines for how much to include in your diet, the best types of protein to choose for optimal health and how Dexcom CGM can show you how the food you eat impacts your glucose.
Protein and diabetes
Protein is an essential macronutrient (along with carbohydrates and fats) that helps build and repair your tissues and muscles. It’s essential for enzymes that help start important chemical reactions, hormones that regulate your bodily functions, antibodies that help you fight infections, transporting molecules within your body, and maintaining your body’s fluid balance.
Protein should be a part of diets for people with diabetes because it has an important role in glucose metabolism. High-protein foods can slow your digestion and lead to a more gradual and sustained rise in glucose levels compared to eating carbohydrates alone. Think of protein as a buffer in your digestive system that helps reduce rapid rises and drops in glucose levels. While carbs generally get the most attention while meal planning for diabetes, protein can have a notable impact on glucose metabolism and is important to monitor if you have type 1 or type 2 diabetes.
How does protein impact blood glucose levels?
The way that protein impacts glucose levels can vary from one person to another. Some people who are sensitive to protein find that meals containing carbohydrates that are also high in protein and fat cause a greater rise in glucose levels than carbohydrate-containing meals alone. High-protein meals can also cause the post-meal rise in glucose to be delayed compared to low protein meals.
Some people who take mealtime insulin (also known as bolus insulin) adjust the amount and timing of their insulin based on the protein content of their meals. This could mean adding additional units to an insulin dose or splitting the amount of insulin administered over multiple doses. For people using an insulin pump, an extended bolus feature can be used to help spread post-meal insulin over a longer duration of time to better match the delayed rise in glucose that can come from a high-protein or high-fat meal. The effect of protein on glucose levels can also be more pronounced if you stick to a low-carb diet.
Because there are so many factors that impact how someone’s glucose levels respond to high-protein meals, adjustments to insulin dosing should always be done under the supervision of a health care provider.
What are the best protein choices for people living with diabetes?
When it comes to diabetes and protein in your diet, the rules for a healthy overall diet also apply here. It’s always best to seek minimally processed foods, as they are better for you.
It’s also healthier to choose leaner cuts of meat that have less saturated fat over fattier cuts.
Leaner cuts of protein include:
- Chicken breast
- Turkey
- Certain cuts of beef or pork loin
- Seafoods are also nutritious, because they tend to be both leaner and higher in Omega 3 fatty acids
The key with animal proteins is to avoid or limit the intake of processed meats, such as hot dogs, bacon or pepperoni, which are often high in nitrites, sodium, and saturated fats.
But meat is not your only source of high-quality protein. Many vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds, and tofu are also high-quality protein sources, and some add the benefits of high fiber and healthy fats. Broccoli, peas, spinach, chickpeas, artichokes, lentils, corn and asparagus are all great plant-based protein sources. Many plant-based proteins also include carbohydrates.
For people with diabetes, it’s important to review nutrition labels or information from trusted sources like the FDA to better understand the plant-based protein’s full nutrient profile, including the amount of carbohydrates and fiber they contain. In general, non-starchy vegetables-like leafy greens, cauliflower, broccoli, and zucchini-have fewer carbs and are unlikely to raise glucose levels much.1
The American Diabetes Association offers some recommendations about protein choices for people with diabetes. Dexcom offers a diabetes-friendly cookbook full of delicious recipes, some including proteins as the star.
How much protein should a person with diabetes eat each day?
So, how do you know how much protein you should eat? The short answer is it’s different for everyone. However, there are two basic formulas you can try and then monitor how each impacts your glucose levels:
- Estimate your daily protein needs by using your body weight in kilograms. You need roughly one gram of protein per kilogram of body weight. For example, if you weigh 150 pounds, divide that number by 2.2 to determine your weight in kilograms, which is about 68. Therefore, you should eat about 68 grams of protein per day.
- Try the Diabetes Plate Formula, which divides protein, carbs and vegetables into ratios for a balanced diet. With this formula, at every meal you fill one quarter of your plate with lean protein, one quarter with high-fiber carbs and half with non-starchy vegetables.
Both formulas are merely places to start, and you should always consult your primary care doctor, endocrinologist, or dietitian before making any changes to your diet. Everyone’s body and dietary needs differ, so meal plans must consider things like existing health conditions, age, activity level, muscle mass, and more. For example, a diet high in protein isn't harmful for most people. But if you have kidney disease, a common complication of diabetes, you may need to limit or closely monitor your protein intake.
Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) can help you fine-tune protein's impact
There’s more than one style of healthy eating. Regardless of diet, a great way to measure the impact of meals on your diabetes is to actively monitor your glucose levels with the Dexcom G7 CGM System. Dexcom G7 can provide insights about how protein and other foods impact your body as you manage your diabetes. You can then adapt by making dietary changes that help you stay in your target glucose level range.
You can use Dexcom G7 to observe how your body responds to higher protein meals compared with lower protein meals. sou can also observe if adding protein to a sugary or starchy snack impacts your post-meal glucose rise and make connections between eating patterns and glucose levels.
For example, you might notice your glucose is frequently out of target range after particular meals, so you could experiment by replacing some of the carbs at that meal with protein. When you check your Dexcom G7, you will see how that change impacts your glucose trends going forward, and you can make dietary changes to help increase your time in range and avoid future complications.
Not only does Dexcom G7 help take some of the guesswork out of understanding how different foods, including protein, impact your body, but it also offers logging features to make tracking easier. By logging your meals* in the Dexcom G7 app,† you’ll have a clearer picture of how your body metabolizes your meals. That's tremendously beneficial, especially with protein, because certain proteins can slow digestion and cause a delayed rise in glucose. A high-protein meal may not cause a rise in glucose levels until three to four hours later. Again, the actionable information from Dexcom G7 can enable you to see the pattern and adapt.
Reviewing your Dexcom Clarity‡ reports, especially your Daily Graphs, can be a great way to locate patterns in your glucose levels. Pay special attention to your glucose readings in the four hours following meals. Consider how the amount of protein and other nutrients may have impacted your post-meal levels. Look for mealtimes where glucose levels stayed within your target range after eating and consider if there's any takeaways you could replicate in your eating habits to achieve those results more consistently.
Get started on Dexcom G7
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*Meal logging only available in the G7 App † Compatible smart devices sold separately: dexcom.com/compatibility. ‡ An internet connection is required to send data to Dexcom Clarity.
1 Non-starchy vegetables for blood glucose control. Non-starchy Vegetables | ADA. (n.d.). https://diabetes.org/food-nutrition/reading-food-labels/nonstarchy-vegetables
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