Whey protein can stabilize blood sugar. I told my friend about it since she has type 2 diabetes and the whey is helping her. This study is worth posting again:

Effect of whey on blood glucose and insulin responses to composite breakfast and lunch meals in type 2 diabetic subjects1,2,3
Anders H Frid, Mikael Nilsson, Jens Juul Holst and Inger ME Björck

Background:Whey proteins have insulinotropic effects and reduce the postprandial glycemia in healthy subjects. The mechanism is not known, but insulinogenic amino acids and the incretin hormones seem to be involved.

Objective:The aim was to evaluate whether supplementation of meals with a high glycemic index (GI) with whey proteins may increase insulin secretion and improve blood glucose control in type 2 diabetic subjects.

Design:Fourteen diet-treated subjects with type 2 diabetes were served a high-GI breakfast (white bread) and subsequent high-GI lunch (mashed potatoes with meatballs). The breakfast and lunch meals were supplemented with whey on one day; whey was exchanged for lean ham and lactose on another day.

Venous blood samples were drawn before and during 4 h after breakfast and 3 h after lunch for the measurement of blood glucose, serum insulin, glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP), and glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1).

Results:The insulin responses were higher after both breakfast (31%) and lunch (57%) when whey was included in the meal than when whey was not included.

After lunch, the blood glucose response was significantly reduced [–21%; 120 min area under the curve (AUC)] after whey ingestion. Postprandial GIP responses were higher after whey ingestion, whereas no differences were found in GLP-1 between the reference and test meals.

Conclusions:It can be concluded that the addition of whey to meals with rapidly digested and absorbed carbohydrates stimulates insulin release and reduces postprandial blood glucose excursion after a lunch meal consisting of mashed potatoes and meatballs in type 2 diabetic subjects.

FULL ARTICLE:

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/82/1/69

Strange - I feel no increase in symptoms from any foods at all. Potatoes, sugar, milk, cheese, meat, ice cream.....nothing I eat affects my PD.
But there are things I no longer enjoy, f. ex. coffee and wine, two things I used to love.
I have had PD now for at least 10 years, I still have 99% good mornings, and don't need medicine to get out of bed and fully function. Choice of breakfast makes no difference.
Sometimes I forget to take my noon meds. until 3 or 4 pm, because I'm busy and peoccupied. No ill effect follows from that.
I have always eaten healthy, freshly made food. I don't like white bread, I don't like cookies, I rarely eat cake, but I do eat chocolate and ice cream. Somehow I must be getting the right foods for me.
Blood type A neg. just for the record.

birte

I've discussed with several of you the truly remarkable results that I have been getting from seemingly minor dietary changes the last few weeks. As some of you have kindly :-) pointed out. it simply doesn't make sense that adding large amounts of protein would make things better in light of the conflict between protein and ldopa transport. By everything that we have been told the result should be just the opposite.

I may have come up with an explanation. A book called "PD - Reducing Symptoms with Nutrition and Drugs" written by Dr. Geoffrey Leader and his nutritionist wife Lucille gives the clue. Simply put, our bodies produce our own supply of dopamine via a chain that begins with....protein!

"Dopamine is metabolized by brain neurons from dietary proteins. The transformation from food into the chemical messenger dopamine is dependent on catalysts known as enzymes. These enzymes are also dependent on particular nutrients known as co-enzymes. This entire metabolic process requires much cellular energy. Energy is manufactured in the cells from specific nutrients."

My best results have been when I started the day by immediately eating a boiled egg with my first sinemet. That is totally against the conflict with ldopa, which I have concluded is an error that has been propagated for too long. In fact, Dr. Lieberman puts the number of people susceptable to this problem may be as low as 20%!

My theory is that by eating dense animal protein first thing in the morning I allowed my body to make an extra supply of dopamine right at the time I needed it most and gave me a strong start on the day.

This would also explain why it worked so well for me while actually made others worse. Look at the quote above and notice the number of critical points that would prevent this happening in someone else. Protein. Enzymes. Co-enzymes. Energy from specific nutrients. Any PWP who is missing a single link in that chain won't benefit and if they also fall into the sub-group that experiences the conflict will in fact suffer.

If this works as proposed, then it might be possible to repair the chain.

I think I can test this, at least in my case. It is now 9:30 PM. I normally take my last sinemet at 6:00 PM and start to wear off about now. By the time I go to bed at 11:00 or so I am "off" and very miserable. So, I ate an egg about fifteen minutes ago. If I am right and my metabolic chain is intact, I should get a boost from the protein that will make a noticeable difference in the next couple of hours.

I will let you know.

-Rick

...but life intruded. The evening seemed to follow my usual pattern. I did, however, sleep unusually well. The next morning was a different matter. I started out with nuts and raisins but it took me over two hours to turn on! Lingering effects of the protein?

But a couple of days later I started out with a boiled egg and followed up with another two to three hours later. I did wonderfully. I am starting most days that way now with good results. So it seems that protein in the morning is good for me and in the evening is perhaps questionable.

Something I wonder about and will try to investigate is the action of blood sugar levels in that period. I have already noticed a spike-and-drop effect that coincides with my symptoms worsening. But the actual values stay within the norm. If I understand correctly, hypoglycemia can follow a similar pattern. You feel yourself drooping, eat a candy bar, your blood sugar spikes, then plummets, leaving you in worse shape than you started. In that case the actual values deviate considerably from the norm.

What if it is not so much the glucose levels themselves but also the rapid change that causes the problems in both cases? And maybe the morning protein acts as a brake on the changes?

I will keep at it because there is something very powerful here. It has saved my butt for sure.

-Rick

I find this all extremely interesting. From a personal standpoint, over a year ago (before my official PD diagnosis) I went on South Beach diet, mostly to lose a few extra pounds that were accumulating around my waist due to inactivity. Otherwise I was in pretty good shape. After my body adjusted to the low glycemic/high protein diet, I felt better physically and mentally than I had in years.

I heard the stories of protein interfering with levodopa absorption, so I take my meds an hour before I meet. I haven't had any problems that people have complained about. Elminating sugars was the biggest positive improvement. I do know now that if I up my sugar intake, then I not only feel horrible overall, but I feel sick to my stomach. And that obviously results in my PD symptoms being more bothersome.

The real trick is to eliminate the "old school" thought of eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner and instead eating 6 small meals throughout the day. I can see where timing with meds can be tricky but the results overall seem to be far more beneficial than the negatives. You keep your metabolism working as it should and thereby eliminate those "peaks and valleys" that can cause so many problems.

The whole theory of protein that Rick is talking about certainly bears further examination.

Todd
PDTalks.com

If you go to Medline and search for "high protein diet parkinson's" you only get 15 to 20 hits. There are only a dozen or so rather small studies reported and most were from the 70s and 80s. They also seemed to be determined to confirm the earlier ones that concluded that protein and ldopa don't mix. In short, as is so often the case with PD, the "givens" start looking shakey when examined closely.

One of the later ones stood out to me:

1: Clin Neurol Neurosurg. 1993 Sep;95(3):215-9.

The influence of a standard meal on Sinemet CR absorption in patients with
Parkinson's disease.

Roos RA, Tijssen MA, van der Velde EA, Breimer DD.

Department of Neurology, Academic Hospital, Leiden, The Netherlands.

We studied the influence of dietary protein intake on the plasma level profile
of levodopa, carbidopa, and 3-O-methyldopa and clinical efficacy in 12 patients
with idiopathic Parkinson's disease after intake of one levodopa-carbidopa
200/50 controlled release tablet (Sinemet CR; LC-CR). The tablet was given 1 h
before the protein rich meal on one day (fasted) and together with the meal on
an other day (non-fasted). Higher levodopa and carbidopa concentrations were
reached when the LC-CR was taken 1 h before the meal, but the plasma level
profile for levodopa was flatter in the non-fasted state. The area under the
curve for levodopa was slightly higher in the fasted condition. For the clinical
variables walking and tapping slightly better clinical results (P = 0.08) were
found in the fasted condition with the higher levodopa levels. If the patient on
levodopa is in a clinically satisfactory condition, then non-fasted condition
could be preferred because of the smooth plasma level profile demonstrated.
However, if the initial levodopa concentrations are not in the critical range to
be effective for the patient, the advice should be to take the drug in a fasted
condition.

PMID: 8242964 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE

Notice that 1) they didn't find a whole heck of a lot of difference in "clinical results" (walking) and 2) the "plasma level profile " was flatter, which presumably would mean fewer fluctuations. One thing that is missing in most of this is time of day info on protein consumption. Since glucose, cortisol, and everything else has a rhythym to be considered, it sure would be interesting to know that.

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