Nearly 12% of the U.S. population has diabetes, and 38% of the population has prediabetes, a condition where blood sugar levels are higher than normal but not high enough yet to be classified as type 2 diabetes.
Poor blood sugar management raises the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, making it important for everyone to do their best to control their blood glucose levels. Now, an award-winning cookbook author says she has a hack for managing her blood sugar: She goes on daily “fart walks.”
Mairlyn Smith, who is the author of the book Peace, Love & Fibre, shared in a now-viral Instagram video that she and her husband go for “fart walks” most nights after dinner about an hour after they’ve eaten. “We eat a lot of fiber, so we have gas, and you fart when you walk,” she says in the video. But Smith says that walking for as little as two minutes can help to lower your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
“Walking is helping maintain our blood sugar, keeping them from ricocheting all around,” she says. “As you age, especially after 40, you have a bigger chance of developing type 2 diabetes.” So, Smith walks. “It’s these little things you do on a regular basis that can have a big impact on your long-term health,” she says.
Smith isn’t the only person who praises the perks of walking after eating — the popular French biochemist Jessie Inchauspé, aka the Glucose Goddess, also recommends doing them. “If you move after eating, some of the glucose you have just eaten gets used up by your muscle cells,” she writes in her book, The Glucose Goddess Method. “Your mitochondria turn the extra glucose into energy to fuel your contracting muscles, and the spike reduces.”
But can walking after you eat have that much of an impact on your blood sugar? Doctors explain.
How does walking after a meal help with blood sugar control?
After you eat, there is an immediate rise in glucose (aka sugar) levels in your body, says Pouya Shafipour, M.D., board-certified family and obesity medicine physician at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA. The more carbohydrates and sugar in your meal, the greater the increase in glucose. “Walking forces the muscles to start using that glucose,” Shafipour says.
“It also aids digestion by allowing food to pass through the intestines faster,” says Christoph Buettner, M.D., Ph.D., chief of the division of endocrinology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. “Having food mostly digested when you fall asleep, versus having it still in your stomach, prevents elevated blood sugar levels throughout the night.”
Beyond that, walking can help you to relax — and research has found a link between stress and the development of type 2 diabetes, Buettner points out.
How does fiber play a role?
Starting a meal with fiber-rich foods like vegetables or a salad that includes some protein may lower your risk of eating more carbohydrates later in the meal, Buettner says. “This approach also slows down the absorption of sugars from starches that you may eat later during a meal, which are easily converted into sugar by the gut,” he says. “Protein triggers insulin release, helping your body to utilize glucose and remove it from blood, which prevents glucose spikes.”
Buettner recommends focusing on vegetables vs. other fiber-rich foods like wheat bread. “Vegetables offer more than just fiber — they provide essential nutrients,” he explains. “Most vegetables do not contain a lot of starch and do not spike blood sugar levels as easily.”
Does blood sugar management actually get harder after age 40?
Blood sugar management can become more difficult with age, Buettner says. “As we age, our bodies become more insulin-resistant, meaning insulin doesn’t work as effectively as it did when we were younger,” he says. “This is why diabetes is often associated with aging.”
By age 40, many people have also built up fat tissue, especially around the midsection, “which further impairs metabolism and makes blood sugar control more challenging,” Buettner says.
How else can you manage your blood sugar?
Blood sugar control is “very complex” and involves several factors, including what you eat and other lifestyle habits, Shafipour says. He recommends striving to follow a Mediterranean diet with plenty of fiber, focusing on whole foods, avoiding eating late at night, and optimizing sleep, aiming to get seven or more hours of sleep a day.
Doing your best to lower stress levels and exercising regularly can also help, Buettner says. If you’re able, Shafipour says that adding a fart walk to your day can also be a good thing. “A walk is very helpful for sugar metabolism,” he says.
