Guar Gum – a Natural Hypoglycemia Treatment?

Filed under: Diet | 3 Comments »

I wrote a couple of days ago on the role of cinnamon and vinegar in a hypoglycemic diet. The results from my research on vinegar were encouraging, but sprinkling vinegar on everything isn’t a real option (vinegar on corn flakes? ugh!).

Guar Gum and Reactive Hypoglycemia Glucose Levels

I decided to hunt for some more natural ways to stabilize blood sugar, and came across this article on the effects of guar gum on postprandial (post meal) blood sugar levels (guar gum is a natural source of fiber extracted from the guar bean). The researchers reported that guar gum seemed to reduce blood sugar levels by slowing the gastric emptying rate (and therefore leads to a more steady blood sugar rise): the more guar gum given, the better the effect on blood sugar levels.

This isn’t the only piece of research on the effectiveness of guar gum. It’s effects have been heavily studied for decades. You can read about a study on guar flour and pectin here and a more recent article here, although I could cite dozens of others.

The studies suggest adding between 2.5g and 10g a day of guar or pectin to meals (or another simple fiber such as gum tragacanth, methylcellulose, wheat bran, or cholestyramine). More than 10g a day isn’t a good idea and could lead to adverse side effects, which drugs.com lists as including GI obstruction and flatulence; I did find a study here that said healthy adults consuming a “crispy bar” containing approximately 6g of guar gum suffered from no ill gastrointestinal effects, but it’s worth noting that large amounts of any dietary supplement can lead to adverse effects–not just guar gum.

Despite the apparent good news, guar gum isn’t for me personally. As a vegetarian, I probably eat enough fiber (I regularly consume oat bran, barley, kidney beans, and black-eyed peas which contain high values of soluble fiber). But for those of you out there who aren’t vegetarian? I’d recommend that you Go Veg! but if you don’t, guar gum could be worth a try .

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3 Comments on “Guar Gum – a Natural Hypoglycemia Treatment?”

1 Chic Thompson said at 11:22 am on November 29th, 2009:
Have you experimented with taking Betaine HCL before meals?

Would this have the same effect as red wine vinegar? Could it make reactive hypoglycemia worse because it helps to digest the carbs?
2 Steph Kenrose said at 4:49 am on December 1st, 2009:
I wouldn’t personally take Betaine HCL. I haven’t been able to find anything linking it to stopping reactive hypoglycemia (if anyone else can find something let me know!).

Vinegar helps RH by delaying gastric emptying. It seems to me that Betaine HCL would have the opposite effect. You want to slow down carb absorption, not speed it up.
3 Chemtotal said at 4:35 pm on May 23rd, 2010:
Guar gum is an economical thickener and stabilizer. It hydrates fairly rapidly in cold water to give highly viscous pseudoplastic solutions of generally greater low-shear viscosity when compared with other hydrocolloids and much greater than that of locust bean gum. High concentrations (~ 1%) are very thixotropic but lower concentrations (~ 0.3%) are far less so. Guar gum is more soluble than locust bean gum and a better emulsifier as it has more galactose branch points.