In reality, even though we watch our diet, blood sugar is not a perfect science. However it is known that some foods are more influential than others. These foods are mostly carbohydrates - and they can affect more than just our blood sugar. Carbohydrates can affect our moods and appetite through a neurotransmitter called serotonin.

Serotonin is unique in that it is indirectly controlled by foods, specifically carbohydrates. It's not surprising that eating foods like chocolate cake and potato chips can lift your spirits for a moment or two - but the aftermath doesn't always seem as exhilarating. This becomes a fattening trend, after a while. Why do we get a spiritual uplift from indulging in these no no yum yums?

There is an explanation for this fattening fix. Different sugars affect the brain in different ways. Beware of sugars that are more processed like: glucose, dextrose, and sucrose. These sugars enter the bloodstream quickly, reaching high levels in a short time. This triggers the release of large amounts of insulin. The evolution of man has not adapted for highly refined sugars. This type of sugar is quickly ushered to the cells. Depending on how active a person you are - this energy may not be used up and therefore results to fat storage. A good indicator to use when choosing carbs is the glycemic index. The lower you stay on the index, the less the overall impact on your blood sugar rise. Checkout Fifty50 glycemic index for a list of everyday foods.

Whey Low is made of natural sugars like sucrose, fructose and lactose - not artificial ingredients. So it's unlikely your grandmother or your little brother will taste the difference. Even better is the fact that it should have substantially less impact on your blood sugar, for it barely reaches 25 on the glycemic index, whereas table sugar is a whopping 100.

This unique blend of all natural sugars is the ideal sugar replacement to control after-meal blood sugars, a definite concern for type 1, as well as type 2 diabetics. Use of Whey Low reduces insulin requirement, which eases stress on the beta cells (in type 2) and exogenous insulin requirements (in type 1). Whey Low also helps strengthen the immune system. The unabsorbed sugars of Whey Low, combined with starch, stimulate growth of healthful gut bacteria known as the prebiotic effect. This healthful gut bacteria has been shown in recent literature to stimulate the immune system.

Whey Low was developed by Lee R. Zehner. When his wife was diagnosed with diabetes in 1999 he wanted to come up with something that would allow her to continue her love for baking, without sacrificing control of her blood sugars. Whether you're whipping up frosting, baking cookies or searching for a new diabetes friendly coffee sweetener - Whey Low gives you an opportunity to indulge in your delights with significantly less impact on your sugars. Thanks to That's Fit for leading me on to this remarkable culinary crutch!

"What can I eat?" That's the question most people who are newly diagnosed with diabetes ask. Sometimes this question is piggy-backed with "What can't I eat?' -- which is more or less the same question. Doctors are busy people, and it's all too often that people are left to figure out much about their condition by themselves. I personally came across an example of this less than three weeks ago, where a family friend was diagnosed with type 2. Feeling, shall we say, less-than-informed by her doctor, she turned to me (former fitness trainer) and my girlfriend (type 1 diabetic, diabetes blogger, and dLife web/TV content editor) for some answers.

"I can't eat peas, can I? The doctor told me that peas were out." This is what my family friend was told -- No peas. Personally, I had never heard anything of the sort regarding peas. Neither did my girlfriend. By no means am I a doctor, and I suppose I could be wrong with the whole peas thing, but as best as I can tell, peas don't ring in all that high on the glycemic index. So, peas should be fine. Other foods, however, such as sugary candies, rice, pasta, etc. may have to be cut back on.

Peas were back in. As were many of the other foods that my family friend thought would never grace her pallet again. And while she still seems a little confused about her new diagnoses -- particularly what foods she should be eating and which ones she should be avoiding or limiting -- it seems like she's finally starting to figure it out.

What increases bone density, promotes digestive health, helps keep kids healthy, and benefits the management of diabetes? Here's a hint, it sounds like the lifeblood treatment for type 1 diabetes - insulin - but the name of this goodie is inulin. Inulin in foods provides both bulk and sweetness without causing a rise in glucose levels.

Inulin is a natural dietary fiber found in over 35,000 common foods like artichokes, asparagus, onions, garlic, raisins and bananas. As an undigested fiber, it has no effect on blood glucose levels. It has a zero Glycemic Index. You could easily find it in your grocer's refrigerated section in Stonyfield Farm yogurts. Their version of inulin comes from chicory roots. Amazing all the places this ingredient naturally derives!

It is used increasingly in foods, because it has excellent nutritional and functional characteristics. Inulin can be used to replace sugar, fat, and flour. For the masses concerned with nutrition-labels, it contains one-third to one-fourth the food energy of sugar or other carbohydrates and one-sixth to one-ninth the food energy of fat. I'm curious to see what it tastes like, aren't you? From ignorant experience (uninformed of the artificial sweeteners used) I enjoy Stonyfield yogurts. I'll have to try another brand name with inulin on for size. Breaking news!! I just checked the ingredients in my newest dopamine-boosting fix: Trader Joe's low-glycemic dark chocolate. Golly gee-- sure enough inulin is on the list. I'm so in love with this dark chocolate because it really has such an insignificant affect on my blood sugar. Ultimate kudos to Ramsey, the creator of Miracle Muffins, for this sweet trinket of knowledge on artificial sweeteners!!

Aside from the more widely known risks of running high blood sugars, researchers at the University of California San Francisco report that elevated blood sugars may be linked to a risk of dementia and memory loss in older adults.

The belief is that chronically elevated blood sugar may directly damage brain neurons or eventually cause health conditions that indirectly impair cognition. Being a fairly new discovery, there is little information available on how to prevent high blood sugars from affecting cognitive abilities, save for methods of keeping blood sugar levels low in the first place.

When in doubt over whether or not a food is high in simple sugars, a good resource is the Glycemic Index. To reference this, just head over to: www.glycemicindex.com, where you'll be able to input various foods and, in return, be given its place on the glycemic index (the higher the number, the higher the amount of fast-dissolving sugars).

For easy reference, just remember that most starchy foods -- sugary snacks, pasta, rice, potatoes, etc. -- will spike your blood sugar levels, whereas slower digesting, non-starchy/low-carb foods such as vegetables, lean meat, and dairy should keep everything in check. It can all sometimes be a little overwhelming, but with some advanced planning, eating healthier is possible. The key, especially given this new information, is to not lose your mind over it.

The carb craze, just when will it end? Years ago, carbs were an essential part of a well-balanced, if athletic, diet. Olympic gold medal runners would eat massive pasta dinners the night before a big road race, swimmers would carbo-load before meets, and everyday people went as far as taking carb-rich nutritional supplements to get them through a workout or two. BUT, then came along diets with strange names, like Zone and Atkins, all claiming that carbs will cause you to gain weight. Soon, people were avoiding carbs like the plague and instead opting for extra sides of bacon. The madness ensued for quite some time, until the masses finally came around to the concept of "good" carbs and "bad" carbs, something that people with diabetes have long since been aware of.

But, there's some new evidence to suggest that not only are "good" carbs (i.e. carbs that are not high on the glycemic index) easier on blood sugar, but they may also lead to weight loss. The prevailing thought behind this assertion is actually quite simple: It takes longer to digest low GI foods, which therefore causes you to feel more full for a longer period of time, and also requires the burning of more calories to complete the digestion process.

In a related study, now published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, 129 overweight and obese people followed one of four reduced-calorie diets for 12 weeks. Two of the diets were high in carbs and two were high in protein, and of each of these two groups, one followed a low GI carb diet. The results? All groups lost weight (chalked up to the reduced-calorie diet itself), but the low GI diets lost nearly two times as much body fat.

Horizon Science has developed an all natural sugar with less effect on raising blood sugar. The discovery was made over a three-year period at a sugar mill in Australia.

The glycemic index is based on how much blood glucose rises after consuming a particular food over a 2-hour period. This is compared to a "reference" food. White sugar has a GI rating of 65, whereas the GI rating of this sugar is 51, nearly 25 percent lower. In essence, this means that the lower GI sugar will raise your blood sugar 25 percent less than white sugar. The low GI sugar has higher amounts of polyphenols, which have been shown to reduce body fat and increase lean muscle mass. A number of studies suggest that a low GI and slowly digestible carbohydrates can contribute to the prevention of obesity and diabetes.

The new ingredient can be used in cooking and baking like ordinary sugar, whereas artificial sweeteners can become carcinogenic when heated. Don't preheat the oven just yet -- you'll have to wait a little while for the sweet victory of lower GI sugar. The product will not be on the market until 2008.

Good news for devotees of the glycemic index, a technique used for assessing the carbohydrates contained in meals: a study has confirmed that it works. Not only that, the glycemic index has also been found to be effective at predicting blood sugar levels after meals.

The study was carried out by researchers at the University of Toronto and results have been published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The researchers got together a small bunch of willing participants in Sydney and Toronto for the study, had them eat several test meals, and then measured their post-meal blood sugar levels. The results showed a close correlation between carb content, glycemic index and variations in blood sugar levels.

Says Dr. Thomas M. S. Wolever, an author of the study, "The good news is that the glycemic index works. For sensible people it makes a lot of sense."

A new University of South Carolina (USC) study indicates that the Glycemic Index (GI), a popular tool ranking carbs' ability to affect blood sugar levels, may not help people determine the foods they should eat. The USC study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, suggests that the GI is a limiting tool because the numbers in the index are based on strictly controlled settings -- namely, that blood-sugar levels are recorded two hours after ingesting test foods and after a person has fasted overnight. The study argues that many factors can affect food's impact on glucose levels, like how long the food is cooked and other foods eaten at the same time. When USC researchers followed 1,000 participants' overall blood-glucose levels and diets (with low and high GI's) over five years, they found that a diet's GI was not related to any of the measures of blood glucose. This means that the GI is probably not picking up the specific effects of food on blood glucose.

But here's the good (if not common sense) news: Several recent studies show that dietary fiber is important to diabetes, and foods high in fiber typically have a relatively low GI. So, in some studies, the GI may have been related to good health because of dietary fiber, not because of a unique, artificial number assigned through the glycemic index. Once again, here's the common sense part: If we eat a diet low in saturated fat that includes whole grains, fiber, fruits and veggies -- and maintain moderate, consistent physical activity -- this will support diabetes control and weight management. It's not new news but it certainly bears repeating.

eDiets.com has a good article on the basics of Glycemic Index, and the importance of understanding it.

The GI is a way of ranking carbohydrate foods based on how much of a rise in blood sugar they produce during the two to three hours after you eat them. Foods with a higher GI number produce a higher rise in blood sugar. As a result, the body must produce more insulin. Lower GI foods produce less of a rise in blood sugar, and, therefore, less insulin needs to be produced.

Yea, they want to sell you on their services, but it's still a good article nonetheless. It also contains a nice side-by-side comparison chart of low, mid, and high GI foods.