Fiber is among the diabetic's best friends. Fiber is able to help lower blood glucose levels, blood cholesterol levels, and weight, and enable you to feel complete with fewer calories and much less carbs. Start here (written by Redmond Reporter) are five things every diabetic must know about fiber:
1. Fiber has 0 calories as well as zero carbs. Food labels describe fiber as part of complete carbohydrate but the carbohydrates in fiber aren't digestible. They do not raise blood sugars, and also it's OK to subtract grams of fiber out of total grams of carbohydrate if you are counting carbs. Diabetics still need to count non fiber carbohydrates against the totals of theirs for daily and each meal.
2. Fiber helps lower post-prandial (after-meal) blood sugar levels. Fibre fills your stomach and slows the release of digested foods out of your stomach into your intestine. This decelerates the release of sugars to the bloodstream of yours thus the pancreas has more hours to make insulin to keep blood glucose levels reduced.
3. Fiber can help you feel full so you don't want to eat sugar. Soluble fiber, found in fruits, vegetables, and oat bran, keeps you feeling full but gassy or bloated not. Soluble fiber, contrary to the fiber present in wheat bran, does not cause heartburn.
4. Also, because it helps to keep you feeling full fiber will help you lose weight and keep a normal weight. Plus, as an additional bonus:
5. Soluble fiber lowers cholesterol levels. Dozens of studies confirm that having fibre reduces cholesterol. This is because fiber "catches" extra cholesterol released by your liver and also keeps it from re-entering the body of yours.
Diabetics, both type one and type 2, should eat a minimum of 20 35 grams of fiber each day, and if possible more. Most diabetics eat lower than 50 % that amount, and diabetics who follow high protein meat-based diets might get hardly any fiber at all. The ordinary person should eat between 20 35 grams of fiber each day. Many Americans eat about half that amount.

A study done at Southwestern Medical School and published in the brand new England Journal of Medicine discovered type 2 diabetic patients who eat fifty grams of fiber a day... the total amount provided by about twelve servings of fruit, vegetables, and whole grain... got these results: