Research paper
Nuttall FQ, Mooradian AD, Gannon MC, Billington CJ, Krezowski P. Effect of protein ingestion on the glucose and insulin response to a standardized oral glucose load. Diabetes Care. 1984 Sep-Oct;7(5):465-70. doi:10.2337/diacare.7.5.465. PMID: 6389060.
Why we cite it
One of the earliest studies to quantify the synergistic insulin response when protein and carbohydrate are consumed together. Demonstrated that in Type II diabetics, protein combined with glucose produces an insulin response ~2.5x higher than glucose alone — and importantly, that this enhanced insulin response reduces the plasma glucose rise by 34%. This synergistic effect (the combined response exceeds the sum of individual responses) helps explain why mixed meals have fundamentally different metabolic effects than isolated macronutrients, and provides the mechanistic basis for understanding why protein-rich meals affect blood sugar differently than carbohydrate-only meals. 467 Semantic Scholar citations.