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Apparently coffee + fat = "blood sugar spikes."

"Researcher Marie-Soleil Beaudoin has discovered not only that a healthy person's blood sugar levels spike after eating a high-fat meal, but that the spike doubles after having both a fatty meal and caffeinated coffee -- jumping to levels similar to those of people at risk for diabetes."

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2011/04/01/got.a.craving.fast.food.skip.coffee.study.says

I suspect that the science is crap here. My apprehension stems from this odd tidbit:

"...the study is the first to examine the effects of saturated fat and caffeinated coffee on blood sugar levels using a novel fat cocktail which contains only lipids. This specially designed beverage allows researchers to accurately mimic what happens to the body when we ingest fat."

I drink my coffee with my own "novel fat cocktail," a.k.a. heavy cream, as I suspect many here do as well. Should we summarily dismiss this report, or is there anything here of interest?

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4 
 Don't blame the coffee! – Anonymous Chump Nov 30 2011 at 23:52
Really curious what their "novel fat cocktail" consists of. – Dean Dec 1 2011 at 3:56
Its a very large amount of coffee, around 1L per day. Its partially consistent with paper "Effects of Coffee Consumption on Fasting Blood Glucose and Insulin Concentrations" (care.diabetesjournals.org/content/27/12/2990.full) which showed the same thing without OGTT. The duration is short and N is small. Since coffee promotes weight loss, which means higher FFA it could maybe describe the mechanism behind insulin resistance. – majkinetor Dec 1 2011 at 12:46
On the other hand, coffee decreases TNF-alpha activity which lowers adiponectin levels.This improves insulin sensitivity. There are multiple good sides of coffee consumption related to diabetes - it is high in antioxidants for 1, it is high in magnesium for 2 (~100 mg/cup), it promotes fat loss due to Paraxanthine for 3 and it reduces inflammation via multiple pathways (adrenal + phosphodiesterase inhibition) – majkinetor Dec 1 2011 at 12:57

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"Coffee consumption was associated with a substantially lower risk of clinical type 2 diabetes." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067360211436X

"This systematic review supports the hypothesis that habitual coffee consumption is associated with a substantially lower risk of type 2 diabetes." http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/294/1/97.full

"Conclusion: Regular consumption of coffee and potentially black tea, but not green tea, is associated with lower risk of type 2 diabetes in Asian men and women in Singapore." http://www.ajcn.org/content/88/4/979.short

"Conclusions: Coffee consumption appears to have beneficial effects on subclinical inflammation and HDL cholesterol, whereas no changes in glucose metabolism were found in our study. Furthermore, many coffee-derived methylxanthines and caffeic acid metabolites appear to be useful as biomarkers of coffee intake." http://www.ajcn.org/content/91/4/950.short

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Just from the linked article, it sounds like the fat + coffee combo suppressed insulin production. If you're in the Paleo(ish) camp that thinks chronic hyperinsulinemia is something to be avoided, it actually sounds like a fat + coffee drink might be good for you, as long as you don't follow it up a few hours later with a sugar bomb.

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interesting comment. – wjones3044 Dec 1 2011 at 22:14
Sounds like bulletproof coffee is the way to go. – raydawg Aug 4 at 0:50
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If you have T2 diabetes, anything that causes a spike should be avoided.

Otherwise, put me in the "the science is crap" column.

More from curiosity than health concerns, I've been using a BG meter heavily.

This morning was typical: I started with a tall glass of 50% water kefir & 50% pomegranate/blackberry juice that was fermented again and bottled. Contained at least a little fructose.

Right after, I drank 2 mugs of coffee w/honey & whipping cream. A total of about 1 tbsp honey.

In the middle of the above as well as after, my BG was 94. Some spike!

I've also tested after meals of fatty meat with fruit for dessert right after drinking my coffee (cream & honey) and averaged around 102-110.

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 Oh my goodness, pomegranate blackberry kefir?? That sounds delicious! – January Dec 1 2011 at 0:00
Your BG responses sound about the same as mine. – wjones3044 Dec 1 2011 at 22:14
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For any who are interested, here's the link to the (free, at least for now) full text of the journal article: http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~ajca/cosic23.4-3.pdf

Looks like another case of the media somewhat twisting what the study actually said. The blood glucose levels only spiked because they administered an OGTT (75g dextrose).

It sounds like they are looking at glucose tolerance following a fat load, and then the impact of adding caffeine to the mix. The transient IR following a high fat meal is not new. If you eat carbs, don't eat ~80g fat (1g/kg) for breakfast. Even for many high fat eaters, that is a LOT = almost 5T or over 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream or butter.

So glucose spiked more several hours after consuming a ton of fat. To be expected.

I'm intrigued by the incretins increasing while tolerance decreases. Usually that's the other way around. Gotta look at this more closely.

Per the title of this question. NO, any particular food won't give you diabetes. As others have posted, caffeine seems to have protective or at worst no effect vis a vis diabetes risk.

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NO, any particular food won't give you diabetes - So we get diabetes from.... majick ? If only rats could post up some observations here... – majkinetor Dec 1 2011 at 20:53
Surely you don't think any single food gives someone diabetes, do you? Rhetorical question. – Evelyn aka CarbSane Dec 2 2011 at 10:25
Thanks for posting this link. Is a 75g OGTT a relatively normal quantity for a glucose challenge? I'm thinking specifically for someone who suspects type 2 diabetes or diabetes linked to pregnancy (e.g., that awful orange drink). – wjones3044 Dec 2 2011 at 19:27
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 You're welcome :) Yes, nowadays that's pretty much the standard OGTT. I've seen older studies use 50g and maybe they might (or should?) use that still with someone who's a known diabetic to measure progress. It is interesting too that glucose response is muted if you have fat with your carb, but ingest a big fat load and then the carb load a while later and whammo?! I'm definitely going to revisit this one when I get a chance. – Evelyn aka CarbSane Dec 2 2011 at 21:45
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Okay, so they fed the subjects some kind of strange high-saturated-fat drink, and then hours later had them drink something sugary. And they found that the fat somehow caused the blood sugar spike to remain higher than it otherwise would have.

What makes me laugh is that, to me and I suspect to most people here, that sugary drink is poison! It's a metabolic molotov cocktail! I don't think they found that the saturated fat increased the subjects' blood sugar – only that it seemed to prevent that crisis from resolving as quickly as it otherwise would have. Maybe eating saturated fat will impair my body's ability to deal with my drinking gasoline, but nobody is going to blame saturated fat for that!

Did they see what happens when you feed someone this fatty drink and then feed them something remotely healthy for their next meal? Does the fat make a healthy meal unhealthy, or are they just blaming it for making a stupendously unhealthy meal more so?

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Holy hyperbole, Batman! Sugar is not poison. – Matt Dec 1 2011 at 0:16
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 Sorry. Got a little Lustigian there. I definitely do think that a sugary drinks are poison in the same way that alcohol is. Not downright lethal in any amount, but pretty bad for almost everybody almost all of the time. I just think it's wacky that the focus is on the role of fat and coffee in this situation, whereas it's the sugary drink that seems like the main culprit in causing the unhealthy state to which they're pointing. – Charlie Dec 1 2011 at 1:14
Except a normal response to a sugary drink is a muted blood glucose spike. What these folks have documented is the effect of saturated fat and caffeine on insulin response. It shouldn't be a huge surprise that insulin response is affected by a multitude of factors. – Matt Dec 1 2011 at 12:47
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Coffee? diabetes? I'd be more worried the cookie, scone, bagel, insulin spiking dairy, milk chocolate, sandwich etc that the coffee was chasing down, before I got worried about the coffee.

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Coffee hits the reward pathway, so it is something that you will eventually have to give up. So do it. It is way easier than sugar or carbs or alcohol.

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 Did Aravind put you up to this? – Shari Bambino Dec 1 2011 at 1:15
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 Give coffee up? What kind of sick joke is this? – Anonymous Chump Dec 1 2011 at 1:18
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 Eventually??? Or else what? I plan on drinking coffee until the day I die, even if it kills me. – peter Dec 1 2011 at 1:47
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 Oh, it is so not easier than sugar or carbs or alcohol. For me, it's even harder than quitting smoking. Of all my addictions, it's the one remaining that I haven't been able to kick. – Rose Dec 1 2011 at 4:08
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 It's nothing. I kick it everyday. – edrice Dec 1 2011 at 20:42
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Maybe a starbucks mocha fraperchino would, but lets face it...thats not coffee.

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 Yeah, that's more like a sludge of sugars and other crap with a tiny shot of coffee. And people blow a ton of money to get sick off it. Wow. – raydawg Dec 1 2011 at 21:28
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I have decided my approach to eating has been misguided. I am going to devote many more of my waking hours to visualizing, pondering, and ruminating on food choices that scare me. There are so many diseases I could come down with. I want tHiughts of these to fill my waking hours. Hopefully my dream life too.

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 Dorado, I like most of your answers, but this is unnecessarily mean. The whole point of this site is to air concerns and worries and get feedback. And this query is actually a true health question, as opposed to some of the truly inane shxt that's been asked in the last few months. – Rose Dec 1 2011 at 17:01
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 Rose, this is the natural progression of paleo-ism: curiosity, skepticism, fanaticism, ultimately leading to pragmatism (now with sarcasm!™) – Matt Dec 1 2011 at 18:54
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 Nope, my detector didn't go off. Is it ok to appreciate your sarcasm post-post? – Nance Dec 1 2011 at 22:25
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 I certainly didn't get sarcasm. You have people freaking out on PH over things like cheese and burping, fretting over coffee causing diabetes sounds positively reasonable in comparison! – Matt Dec 2 2011 at 12:43
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 Actually, I'm way more scared of the way the media deals with science. (I'm a science educator. Blech.) – wjones3044 Dec 2 2011 at 19:23
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Abstain from any sugar and this article and research is meaningless.

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I haven't seen any blood sugar spikes due to coffee. Coffee seems pretty neutral. I am testing with a glucometer.

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Theoretically - if coffee raises cortisol, cortisol induces gluconeogenesis, but I'm not sure that it has that much of an effect. – raydawg Aug 4 at 0:52
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yes it will. use organo gold and be free from diabetes http://mycapturepage.com/cp23.php?id=470

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