Which Is The Best Blood-Sugar-Balancing Diet? The Definitive Ranking

Food can either feed disease or be your most powerful medicine. With so much conflicting information online about the best diets for your health, it is difficult to know where to start. While each person's specific health case is different, those with blood sugar problems can benefit more so from certain diets than others.

The ketogenic diet is exploding in popularity in the wellness world, and for good reason. This diet focuses on a high-fat, moderate-protein, and low-carb mix of macronutrients to heal a variety of health problems including rebalancing out-of-control blood sugar—so much so, that in my functional medicine clinic, this is my gold standard for anyone looking to bring healing to their blood sugar problems.

Through transitioning your body from a sugar-burner to a fat-burner, you are no longer relying on glucose for energy and instead gain your energy from ketones, the by-products of fat burning. This is not only a more sustainable form of fuel for your body since you are no longer relying on glucose from high-fructose fruits, grains, and sugar, but this will also help bring your blood sugar levels back down to normal levels.

Multiple studies show the ketogenic diet's ability to lower insulin levels, reduce inflammation, and improve insulin receptor site sensitivity, which helps the body function the way it is designed. Research has even shown that symptoms of type 2 diabetes can be reversed after just 10 weeks on a ketogenic diet!

Intermittent fasting or time-restricted feeding protocols are fantastic tools that can easily be incorporated into any particular diet you may be following. By limiting your food intake to certain windows of time, it gives your body time to rest with some amazing benefits. IF takes center stage for its ability to heal insulin resistance. In fact, multiple studies have linked intermittent fasting with increased metabolism and lower insulin resistance.

One study1 looked at three different patients of various ages, all diagnosed and taking medication for type 2 diabetes for over 10 years. All patients were required to eat a low-carb diet (think: ketogenic) in conjunction with three 24-hour fasts per week. By the end of the trial, not only did each patient lose weight, but they were able to completely discontinue their insulin medication.

Periods of fasting can also help improve2 autoimmune symptoms by restoring balance to the immune system and driving-down inflammation, which can further help in cases of type 1 diabetes.

For those just beginning their wellness journey, a paleo diet is the perfect starting point. It focuses on clean, whole food sources such as vegetables, fruit, meat, wild-caught fish, eggs, nuts and seeds, and healthy non-refined oils, while eliminating dairy, grains, processed foods and sugar, and legumes. By removing foods known to cause blood sugar spikes like grains, unnecessary sweeteners, and processed sugar, it can work to stabilize blood sugar levels.

Following the same principles of a paleo diet, it is slightly stricter by eliminating additional foods including eggs, nuts and seeds, and nightshade vegetables and spices. Since these foods can be immune stimulants for some people, those with autoimmune blood sugar problems like type 1 diabetes and type 1.5 diabetes, also known as LADA (Late Autoimmune Diabetes of Adulthood), can benefit from taking these out from their diet. While you aren't going to cure these autoimmune blood-sugar conditions, the more stable your immune system is the more stable your blood sugar can be.

While studies are limited on the effects of an AIP diet on blood sugar specifically, since you are also removing the same foods in a paleo diet, like grains and sugar, that can contribute to blood sugar spikes, logic would conclude that this diet would be beneficial as well, with the addition of these various immune stimulants, especially if for blood sugar problems that have an autoimmune component to them.