Diabetic Choices - Glycemic Index

Diabetic Choices
As the nation confronts an epidemic of diabetes, we can only hope to find healthy choices to avoid the onset and even stop its progression. In the early 1980s Toronto researchers invented the glycemic index to help control diabetes. The glycemic index ranks carbohydrate foods by their effect on blood sugar levels. Today, it’s an accepted diet strategy for helping control diabetes.
Foods with a GI less than 55 cause only a little blip in blood sugar. Those in the 55 - 70 range raise it a little higher, and carbs with GIs more than 70 send blood sugar soaring. We’re learning that low-GI carbs are healthy; high-GI carbs, in excess are not.
What makes your GI number high or low is how quickly food breaks down during digestion. The longer your body has to wrestle with the carbs to break it down into glucose, the slower the rise in blood glucose and the lower the GI.
The problem with eating lots of high-GI foods is that when your blood sugar soars, so does the hormone insulin. Insulin’s main duty is to scoop up the excess blood sugar and store it safely in muscle tissue. In moderation, insulin is a good guy, but it becomes a killer when its levels spike repeatedly, triggering diabetes, heart disease and possibly cancer. Using some information in this blog may help give you an edge against diabetes, heart attacks, and possibly even cancer. You may even find yourself losing weight as well.
Switching to a low-GI diet appears to help you stop diabetes. This disease, which is characterized by higher than normal blood sugar, has reached epidemic proportions in the U.S., afflicting 16 million Americans. Most have type 2 diabetes, prompted by two very American conditions: excess weight and a sedentary lifestyle.
The glycemic index for diabetics is that it not only helps control blood sugar and insulin, but its appetite-suppressing effects help them lose weight. And weight loss alone can reverse type 2 diabetes, according to Marc Rendell, MD, director of the Creighton Diabetes Center at Creighton University in Omaha, NE. A four-week study on a low-GI diet lowered blood glucose and insulin by 30%, compared to a high GI diet. In a recent 4 month study led by the University of Toronto’s Thomas Wolever, MD, a low GI diet markedly improved insulin sensitivity in a group of prediabetic insulin-resistant people.
In a 6-year study of healthy male professionals, men eating the lowest-GI diets were 25% less likely to get diabetes. In the Nurses’ Health Study, the most powerful diabetes protection—a drop in risk of one-third or more—came from eating a low-GI diet and getting lots of fiber from cereal (7.5g daily).
The Miracle of Vinegar: Once again, vinegar pops up as the elixir of life. Glycemic index experts say that acid in vinegar or lemon juice can substantially blunt the effect of a food on your blood sugar. That means that adding vinegar to your potato salad, meat, soup or fish can be tasty ways to lower the GI of the carbohydrates in these foods.
Low GI foods include: yellow split peas (8), low-fat yogurt (artificially sweetened) (14), peanuts (14), plums (24), pearled barley (25), peaches (28), dried apricots (31), fat-free milk (32), apple (36), pear (35), grapes (43), orange (43), macaroni (45), long-grain rice (47), canned baked beans (48), old-fashioned oatmeal (49), banana (53), sweet potato (54).
Some food should not be avoided or even limited, even though they have high GI ratings. These are low-caloric and very nutritious foods: Carrots (71), watermelon (72), mashed potatoes (73), Total Cereal (76), Rice cakes (82), Baked potato (85), Parsnips (97).
In the intermediate range, we have foods like: beets (64), raisins (64), instant oatmeal (66), pineapple (66) which should be eaten sparingly.
SIX SECRETS - Make the Glycemic Index Work for you:
1) One per meal. Try to choose one-third to one-half of your daily starches from the low-GI list. Consider, for example, a bowl of old-fashioned oatmeal, ½ cups of beans, or some lentil soup – per meal.
2) Go whole grain. There are exceptions, but in general, whole grains foods such as barley and bulgur have a low GI, mainly because their high fiber content serves to slow digestion.
3) Rough it up. The least processed and rougher the grain or flour, the lower the GI. That’s why pasta which is made from coarse-milled wheat, has a low GI even if its not whole grain.
4) Bring if down low. Only have time to make instant rice? Just add some beans. Throwing in a low-GI food brings down the GI rating of the entire meal. Adding some fat or protein also lowers the GI level.
5) Be savvy about snacks. When you snack, you tend to have just one food, all by itself. That’s fine if you’re having a low-cal snack, whether the GI is high-GI bagel or doughnut with hundreds of calories. The glucose won’t get blunted by other foods. So avoid starchy, high-GI foods as snacks.
6) Load up on fruits, vegetables and legumes. Most have a low GI, and you’d have to eat pounds of the ones that don’t to affect blood sugar. But by the same token, don’t binge on low-GI foods that are high in calories (ex. nuts). Gaining weight will raise your blood sugar too.