The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

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photo credit: Zesmerelda

An article on the Food Law Prof Blog, something I read nearly daily, pointed me to an interesting article on Medical News Today about a study connecting diets with high glycemic index and diseases such as diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular diseases and gall stones.

The study provides compelling evidence that diets with a high GI or a high GL will increase your risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. It also shows there is good evidence for links between high blood glucose and gall stones and some types of cancer.

‘The GI is a physiologically-based ranking that distinguishes how different carbohydrate foods (sugars and starches) affect your blood glucose levels.’

‘If you eat carbohydrate foods (sugars or starches) that break down quickly during digestion, the blood glucose response is fast and high - in other words, the glucose in the bloodstream increases rapidly. These foods have the highest GI values.’

…If you have constantly high blood glucose and insulin levels due to eating a high GI diet, you may literally “wear out” your pancreas over time and eventually this can lead to pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes.’

So what does this mean? Actually, nothing new - it’s long been touted that we should moderate our intake of processed and starchy foods, which commonly factor much higher on the glycemic index. The official website of the Glycemic Index offers these general tips for staying low on the index:

• Use breakfast cereals based on oats, barley and bran
• Use breads with wholegrains, stone-ground flour, sour dough
• Reduce the amount of potatoes you eat
• Enjoy all other types of fruit and vegetables
• Use Basmati or Doongara rice
• Enjoy pasta, noodles, quinoa
• Eat plenty of salad vegetables with a vinaigrette dressing

The Glycemic Index site also provides a database for researching the glycemic index value for different foods. From personal experience, I can recommend substituting sugar (58 on the GI) or honey (70+ on the GI) with agave (11 on the GI). I’ve written about agave before, and still use it frequently.

Do you factor in your foods’ glycemic index values when choosing meals? What are your best GI tips?

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