Diabetics who are familiar with the glycemic index have an easier time discerning how certain foods will affect their blood sugar. The principle of the glycemic index is based on a 1 to 100 scale, with pure glucose being 100. A food GI is measured by how much it will raise blood sugar in a 2 hour span.
The glycemic index (GI) underlying theme is a low-sugar, high-fiber, plant-based diet. Most GI lists categorize foods into three groups: Low (less than 55), Medium (55-69), and High (over 70) GI foods. Low GI foods will stimulate the least blood glucose and are presumably better to eat. Vegetables generally are low GI. Foods with lots of sugar have higher values. The GI theory is not cut and dry. Certain factors will skew results, for example: eating protein. Protein will slow the abortion of glucose into the blood. This rule also holds true for fat.
Curious how a low glycemic diet might work for you? Fifty50 wants to help you achieve optimal blood sugar control. They have created a step-by-step experiment that shows how a high glycemic meal will affect a blood sugar, in relation to a low glycemic meal. Check it out and see for yourself is this GI thing is worth mastering.
1. The rules of the Glycemic Index have been around for a very long time. I remember it explained to me when I was six years old. It is really based on common sense. If you feed your body fiber with lot of vegetables, absorption of sugars will take much longer and be lower in scale. Fats and Proteins "get in the way" of food absorption because those two substaces require more energy from the body to digest, by having a larger molecular structure.
I believe the Fifty50 Site is geared more to those with IRD(aka Type 2 Diabetes).
There is no mention of how the variable, exogenous Insulin is effecting all of this.
Posted at 9:20PM on Aug 6th 2007 by BetterCell