Last updated on March 28th, 2015
This year, after adopting a low-carb way of eating, I’ve eaten more strawberries than ever before. That’s ironic since strawberries are sweet and sweet things are generally unwelcome when eating low-carb. But a half-dozen large strawberries have only about 35 calories and 6g net carbs (8 total carbs – 2 grams of fiber). Add some heavy cream, and you have a tasty, nutritious, low-carb dessert.
Now comes news that eating 37 strawberries a day could lessen the risk of complications from diabetes. This is the finding of a study conducted by the Salk Institute for Biological Studies Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory (CNL).
According to the press release, the benefits are thought to be provided by fisetin, a flavonol in strawberries. Flavonols are found in many fruits and vegetables, and have often been associated with reduced risk of serious illnesses such as cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s.
Eating 37 strawberries would give you around 38g net carbs. That’s about the number of carbs that many of us low-carbers get from all the food we eat in a day.
So Fisetin supplements seem like a better way to go. But before you lay in a supply, consider that CNL study was done on diabetic mice — specifically Akita mice with Type 1 diabetes. The mice given the fisetin dietary supplements exhibited improved kidney function and less anxious behavior: “A mouse not suffering with anxiety tends to move around when put in a large area, but a mouse suffering from anxiety does not move around. The diabetic mice showed anxiety behavior, but when fed fisetin their movement returned to normal.”
The researchers speculate that fisetin reduces advanced glycation end-products (AGEs)in the blood and brain. AGEs accumulate over time, and are associated with diabetes, heart disease and infirmities of old age. From my lay person perspective, reducing carbs in your diet would be another way to reduce AGEs, which are a by-product of high blood-sugar levels. That’s the impression I got from the discussion of AGEs in Wheatbelly, the recently published book by Dr. William Davis.
Will fisetin work as well for humans as for Akita mice? Nobody knows. More research is needed — namely, research using human beings instead of rodents.
In the meantime, I will go on eating strawberries, but not three-dozen at a time.
Strawberries (and blueberries) in a small bowl with some heavy cream has been my ‘go-to’ desert this year. Love it! But 37 of them? No way. Also, I think it’s a bad idea to rely on supplements of any kind. I tried taking some for a month, based on so many other low-carbers insisting on them. These included vitamin D, calcium/magnesium, a multivitamin, and fish oil. But ultimately they didn’t change the way I feel whatsoever, so what’s the point? I’ve since ‘graduated’ from simply low-carbing to a more paleo/primal way of eating and I think it is best. Relying on chemicals (i.e., supplements, or crap like processed pepperoni, etc.) is a bad long-term strategy imo. BUT…the approach can be successfully different depending on whether your goal is weight loss or maintenance and long-term health. Once I shed the majority of the fat I needed to lose is when I started focusing more on fitness level and making sure I was doing best by my body, hence the paleo move.
I have had a similar progression in my own approach. Like you, I initially focused on weight loss. That made sense because I was obese and the extra weight was the most significant health issue that I had. Now that I am getting closer to an optimal weight, I am paying more attention to overall nutrition and being fit.
If we all went through eating just what was recommended in the amounts ‘needed’ to stave off disease we would really be obese! The strawberries, the blueberries, the fiber, the whole grain, the oats, the whatever the newest ‘super food’ is, etc. all the recommendations I have seen of each of these would be more than I would consider a single serving.
We would also likely lose the variety that I suspect is essential to a human acquiring the nutrients necessary for optimum function. I will stick to my local, in season, veggies as best I can, according to what my body and my tastes tell me I need. I feel confident when I get good at listening to my body it’s need for survival will insure that I get the nutrients that I need, and will be better at it than a diabetic mouse.
Yes, I suspect that people who “need” extra helpings of a particular nutrient do so either because of an underlying health problem or because the rest of their diet is out of whack somehow. It’s unlikely that evolution would work out so that people need to eat 37 strawberries every day to maintain optimal health!