THE EFFECT OF NATURAL HONEY INTAKE ON THE BODY WEIGHT OF OBESE AND OVERWEIGHT TYPE 2 DIABETICS

Background and Sweeteners make the diet more palatable. Honey is a natural sweetener which can be useful in weight loss due to its antioxidant content. In this study, we examined the effect of honey intake on body weight and blood glucose of overweight and obese subjects with type 2 diabetes. Methods and Materials: This randomized clinical trial was conducted on 34 type diabetics with BMI³25 kg/m2 and fasting blood sugar (FBS) 110-220 mg/dl. Exclusion criteria were malignant disease, major surgery, taking immunoregulatory, cytotoxic or immunosuppressive drugs, pregnancy or lactation in women and insulin injection. They were randomly assigned into 2 groups: Honey Group received oral natural honey for 8 weeks, but the control group continued their usual diet. Body weight and FBS measurements were done at the end of weeks 0, 2, 4, 6 and 8. Repeated measurement analysis was used for analyzing the trend of changes. After the adjustment for the baseline values, the amount of weight loss in the Honey group was 1.6±0.33 kg in average less than the control group (P=0.0001). After the adjustment of the effect of the baseline FBS, the trend of FBS changes were 10.38±8 mg more than the Honey group, which was not significant. The FBS changes were not also significant across the two groups. The 8-week consumption of honey can help lose body weight in obese and overweight diabetic patients without any harmful damages on blood glucose.