Protein Lessons Learned from the Womb

This is the second entry regarding the conference I recently attended on what can shape your future before you were born.

One fascinating tidbit was the research on protein intake of pregnant women.  Before we talk about the results here’s a few quick physiology lesson.

Your pancreas is the organ which produces a hormone called insulin.  Insulin is essential to life since it allows all the cells of your body to be “fed.”  Inside the pancreas are critical cells called beta cells which produce the insulin.

If your beta cells start to die off you become a high risk for diabetes.  Research showed that when pregnant women ate a low protein diet the number of beta cells decreased.

One take home message for pregnant women is the importance of protein intake throughout their pregnancies.  For the majority of us this information can show us the importance of protein on a daily basis.

Not only is protein critical during pregnancy to maintain beta-cells, but during your lifespan eating protein throughout the day can keep your blood sugars even keeled and possibly keep your beta cells alive and well.

Easy sources of protein are eggs, cottage cheese, lean red meat, poultry, fish, nuts/seeds, nut butters, plain yogurt, low fat milk, and cheese.  Eating protein is an easy change to avoiding diabetes – and nothing lost - but gaining important cells to help your sugars.