Is cocoyam Good for Diabetics?

  • July 30, 2018
  • Posted by: Dr. Nnamdi Elenwoke
  • Category: Health
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Cocoyam with its health benefits facilitates diabetics. The number of starch grains contained in the plant can be digested without any problems.
 
Diabetic patients can eat cocoyam and get carbohydrates without problems with the digestive system.
 
Cocoyam and diabetes are two “big friends”. Patients can eat the plant to manage their mellitus (level of sugar in the blood).
 
Another fact is that there is no gluten in the cocoyam. This is good news for people with gluten allergy. They can eat cocoyam without worry.
 
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Putting diabetics aside, the plant Cocoyam is very rich in nutritional value. So it is recommended that you always have cocoyam in your home, for diabetic patients.
 

Relevant Studies on Cocoyam and Diabetes

In 2008, JO Alegbejo et al made a research on  the Glycaemic Index Of Boiled Cocoyam And Stew. This study was undertaken to determine the glycaemic response of diabetic and healthy subjects to equal amounts of carbohydrate in the form of boiled cocoyam with glucose serving as the reference food.

They found that boiled cocoyam therefore is of high glycaemic index and should be combined with low glycaemic index food for it to be suitable for diabetic subjects.

Chinedum Ogbonnaya Eleazu and collegues looked at the Biochemical basis of the use of cocoyam (Colocassia esculenta L.) in thedietary management of diabetes and its complications in streptozotocin induced diabetes in rats. The found out that C. esculenta may exert its anti-diabetic action by delaying/regulating the rate at which dietary starch is hydrolyzed to glucose or possibly through inhibition of acute pancreatitis.

Finally, the study also shows the potentials of C. esculenta in the dietary management of obesity.

Another study by Eleazu CO et al in 2016 evaluated the antihyperglycemic and antihyperlipidemic actions of unripe plantain and cocoyam. They found that Cocoyam or unripe plantain alone showed better antihyperglycemic and anihyperlipidemic action than their combination.

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