Most folks have undoubtedly tried out multiple diets that they were unable to keep or have been hard to stay loyal to over time. If so, you’re not alone. It is much better for your health and wellness to have an eating plan that encourages a healthy way of living. But what does a healthy eating pattern look like?
Thankfully, there are resources available to help you identify which foods might not be the most beneficial for your health. One such tool is the glycemic index (GI). Examine if GI can provide you with the knowledge to make healthy dietary choices.
The Glycemic Index and Carbohydrates
To understand GI, you’ll need to understand carbohydrates first. One of the three macronutrients that the body needs is carbs, alongside protein and fat. However, the traditional carbohydrate stands out when we consider the glycemic index (a play on words was intended).
A macronutrient is something your body requires in large amounts to remain in good health. Carbs can be found in the form of sugar, fiber, and starch found in your meals and have traditionally acted as the main energy source for people. Every carbohydrate is composed of a sequence of glucose (sugar) molecules connected together.
Once a carbohydrate has been consumed, your body begins the digestion process right away. As the carbohydrate moves through the digestive system, countless enzymatic and chemical processes take effect to separate the sugars and starches into glucose, fructose, and galactose. The dietary fiber in your meal goes undigested through your system, which is beneficial to your colon. The molecules of lesser size are taken into your bloodstream and sent through your body to be either employed as power or held back for future usage.
All Carbs Aren’t Not Created Equal
Unfortunately, not all carbohydrates are digested the same way, which makes sense if you think about it. Whole grains are more challenging to break down in the digestive system than simple carbs like white rice, which require less effort when processed.
There is a connection between how your body metabolizes carbohydrates and the effect different foods have on your blood sugar levels. If, for instance, you consume white rice, your glucose levels will be more affected than if you eat wild rice; the carbohydrates present in white rice are simpler for your body to process and turn into energy. Your blood sugar will go up more quickly.
All carbohydrates affect your blood glucose level, yet certain foods have a greater effect than others. The Glycemic Index can be useful in recognizing which carbohydrates are potentially going to create a sharp rise in one’s blood sugar, something that needs to be avoided if one wish to shed extra weight.
What is the Glycemic Index?
The glycemic index can be utilized to find out the effect that a particular food has on your blood sugar. Meals that contain carbohydrates are the only ones indexed due to their different effects on blood sugar levels compared to other foods (e.g., butter or filet mignon).
White rice with a fast digestion rate will receive a higher score on the index, whereas other foods will have a lower rating. White rice has a glycemic index of 72, whereas wild rice has a glycemic index of 45.
Foods that contain a lot of protein, fiber, and fat are less likely to affect your blood sugar levels when contrasted to meals with a higher Glycemic Index. Kidney beans have a low glycemic index score, about 24, and are full of protein and fiber.
Glycemic Index Calculations
Researchers determine the GI of a particular food by measuring the effect it has on a person’s blood sugar when they are given a serving containing 50 grams of carbohydrates (not including fiber). The individual under study is refraining from eating in order to ensure that no other foods interfere with the results, and their blood sugar level is tracked for two hours post-consumption of the food.
The researchers observe how the food affects the blood sugar level and rate it on a glycemic index (GI) of 0 to 100. Pure glucose serves as the benchmark for the GI score, having the highest possible rating of 100. According to Harvard Medical School, the scoring is as follows:
Low GI foods score at 55 or less. Some examples of food items are apples, green beans, oat bran, and non-starchy vegetables. Moderate GI foods score between 56 and 69. Examples consist of unripened bananas, immature peas, sweet potato, semolina, and elbow pasta. High GI foods score at 70 or higher. Some examples of food are cereal which is served cold, watermelon, potatoes, the majority of bread, and sweets. The existing lists of the glycemic index are quite extensive, but they are not complete. You can still utilize them to comprehend what other comparable edibles could calculate.
Can You Benefit from Using the Glycemic Index?
Whether you are already taking steps to improve your well-being or want to gain a better understanding of the carbohydrate levels in the food you eat, the glycemic index can enhance your understanding and help you select food items that will assist you in meeting your wellness objectives.
Glycemic Index and Chronic Disease
This program could possibly cut down the danger of long-term illnesses since it normally encourages less refined food selections, and studies persistently demonstrate that consuming considerable amounts of processed foods is associated with putting on weight. It is still unknown if eating a diet that includes foods with low glycemic indices can have beneficial health effects.
The evidence is inconclusive; some research indicates that a low glycemic index diet may have a beneficial effect on multiple health factors, such as blood pressure and insulin sensitivity, while other studies suggest that this is not necessarily the case. Although the data is not uniform, your digestive system can still give you important facts.
Diabetes and Glycemic Index
It is advisable to stay away from heavily manufactured food items whether or not you have diabetes; these can elevate your glucose level drastically, and they’re damaging to your well-being unless taken in moderation. If you are a diabetic, your body is incapable of efficiently dealing with sugar. Eating too many foods with a high glycemic index can be dangerous and may lead to a condition known as hyperglycemia.
The Glycemic Index (GI) can be used to acquire more information on the amount of carbohydrates present in the foods you normally consume. For managing your blood sugar, it may be easier to keep track of the amount of carbohydrates in your meals. Using carb counting as a means of tracking fluctuations in your blood glucose level is a reliable approach, so you might decide to keep to the same technique.
Weight Control
Eating foods with a low glycemic index instead of saturated fats can be helpful for controlling weight, but using carbohydrates with a high glycemic index is not advisable. A study done by Cochrane discovered that people who are overweight or obese lose more weight with a low glycemic index/load diet than with a diet that is higher in glycemic index/load or other strategies. Additionally, these people also have better control of fat when following a low glycemic index/load diet. It was clear that even when using diets with a low glycemic index/load that still permitted individuals to consume an unrestricted amount of food, the advantages were evident. The end result of the appraisal was that decreasing the glycaemic load of one’s nutrition is a successful way to lose weight and modify lipid profiles and can be easily adapted into somebody’s lifestyle.
Diets with a low glycemic index/load appear to be better at controlling glucose levels and combating inflammation than those with a high glycemic index/load, which may make them more effective in hindering illnesses caused by obesity. In obese and overweight kids, switching to a low glycemic index/load regiments may bring about no reduction in weight but may come with added benefits.
Disease Prevention
Recent studies have demonstrated that long-term adherence to a low-glycemic index (GI) diet may significantly reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and age-related macular degeneration. Repeatedly having elevated blood glucose after consumption of food can lead to diseases due to the three-way increase in glycemic stress, oxidative pressure on the vascular system, and higher levels of insulin. Glycative stress creates a terrible cycle of glycation in systemic proteins and impedes the editing of proteins through the ubiquitin proteolytic pathway and autophagic pathways, which leads to an increase of glycated and other old proteins.
Postprandial hyperglycemia is a risk factor associated with diabetes. A 1998 study demonstrated that even people without diabetes are more prone to atherosclerosis when eating high GI diets, with associated elevated blood sugar levels and diabetes playing a role in kidney disease.
In comparison, Peru and Asia are locations where people consume food using a high-glycemic index, like potatoes and rice, yet still, have low levels of diabetes and obesity. It can be generally assumed that people who live in South America and Asia have lower levels of sugar in their bodies due to the high amounts of legumes and fresh fruits and vegetables that they eat. The combination of carbs with both high and low glycemic indexes results in a moderate glycemic index.
Research conducted by the University of Sydney in Australia suggests that if a person habitually consumes a breakfast of white bread and sugary cereals, they may become at greater risk for developing diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer.
A report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2007 reported that those consuming a diet with a high glycemic index were 42% more prone to developing age-related macular degeneration, a condition that results in blindness, and postulated that 20% of AMD cases could be avoided by eating food with a moderate glycemic index.
The American Diabetes Association backs the glycemic index yet cautions that the aggregate sum of carbohydrates in the nourishment is still the most grounded and significant marker and that each individual ought to make their own custom way to deal with suit them best.
The International Life Sciences Institute determined in 2011 that given all the various approaches to reducing glycemic response and their diverse effects on health, focusing only on modifying glycemic response should not be considered a single solution but rather part of an overall healthy eating and lifestyle plan.
An evaluation of a handful of human studies that used a low glycemic index diet evaluated its effects on pregnancy results. Despite there being no remarkable discoveries in regard to glucose levels during pregnancy and the overall outcome, there were still potential advantages to be noted. In regards to this, a larger quantity of women on a low Glycemic Index diet reached the intended target outcome for their post-meal glucose level, thus cutting back the requirement of insulin treatment. A diet with a low glycemic index (GI) can be beneficial for overweight and obese women. Evidence suggests that intervening with women who have gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) during the early stage of their pregnancies can potentially decrease the amount of weight and centile the infant carries at birth.
Criticism and Alternatives
The glycemic index of a food is used as an indication of the potential for a meal to cause a spike in one’s blood sugar, yet it has been observed that blood glucose levels often differ greatly between individuals after they have partaken in the exact same meal. The glycemic index does not properly display the total effect of the foods being consumed because it doesn’t consider factors besides glycemic response. A better way to measure the effects of food ingredients other than carbohydrates is by utilizing the insulin index to gauge insulin response. The GI value for a food item is determined from the space beneath the curve depicting the glucose response to the food over time and not from the shape of the curve. The glucose response can range from a rapid spike and fall to a less intensive peak but sustained over a longer period, meaning the sum of both responses is equal. For those with type 1 diabetes who do not have an insulin response, the speed of glucose showing up after consumption reflects the digestion of the food item. A model has been created that allows the prediction of how a particular food impacts glucose levels over time by utilizing the parameters associated with that food instead of relying on the GI that only shows the overall effect.
Although the glycemic index can offer some understanding of the comparative amount of diabetes risk associated with certain food sources, there are many ratings that do not align with expectations. It has been recommended that usually, bread has a greater glycemic index than sugar does and that some types of potatoes have a higher glycemic index than that of glucose. Studies have revealed that there is a positive effect on diabetics when it comes to eating fruit, while there is a debilitating consequence that comes with the consumption of fruit juice, even though they have comparable “low GI” scores.
The blood glucose curves presented by Brand-Miller et al. revealed that the main distinction between the curves for average fruit and those for fruit juice is the maximum rate of increase of 4.38 mmol·L−1·h−1 for fruit, compared to 6.71 mmol·L−1·h−1 for juice. The notion that the speed at which blood sugar rises may be a key factor is brought to light; this is especially true when contrasting liquids and solids that give out carbs gradually, and thus have a larger integrated area under their glucose level curves.
Your Takeaways
Gaining an understanding of the amount of carbohydrates in your food can be accomplished by studying the glycemic index. The GI will guide you away from processed foods, stimulate you to center your diet around whole foods and assist you in forming a well-rounded food regimen. Recall that your wellbeing is not only reliant on a diet; physical activity, rest, and relieving tension are equally necessary. It is essential that you speak with your medical practitioner in order to determine whether the glycemic index can be included as part of your life, particularly when you have a previous medical issue such as diabetes.
