Good news for diabetics and dieters – low-glycaemic foods

Sweet Success

(Article as featured in Health & Living USA February 2003, V3,N2)

They call it the sugar disease. It’s diabetes, and it’s reaching near-epidemic proportions. Diabetics have high blood sugar levels that result from the body’s inability to produce or use insulin. It’s estimated that millions more have it, but remain undiagnosed.

Diabetes is deadly. It’s a risk factor for heart disease and can lead to severely debilitating or fatal complications, such as blindness, kidney disease and amputations. Since there’s no cure, diabetics must manage their disease with diet and medication in order to stay healthy.

Two Types of Diabetes

Type 1 diabetes, often called juvenile-onset diabetes, usually strikes children and young adults. It develops when the body’s immune system destroys pancreatic cells, the only cells in the body that make the hormone insulin that regulates blood glucose. Type 1 diabetics usually need insulin injections (sometimes several a day) or an insulin pump to survive. This type accounts for between 5% and 10% of all diagnosed cases.

Type 2 diabetes, commonly called adult-onset diabetes, usually strikes adults, but is increasingly being diagnosed in children and adolescents. It now accounts for between 90% and 95% of all diagnosed cases. Type 2 diabetes is associated with many factors, including age, obesity, a family history of diabetes, impaired glucose tolerance and physical inactivity. It usually begins as insulin resistance, a disorder in which the cells don’t use insulin properly. As the body’s need for insulin rises, the pancreas gradually loses its ability to produce it.

According to the Australian Diabetes Association, research has shown that lifestyle changes such as diet and moderate exercise can prevent or delay Type 2 diabetes among high-risk adults. There are no known ways to prevent Type 1 diabetes.

Sweet Talk from Your Glycaemic Index

Fortunately, making the change to a healthier diet is not that difficult. Since high-glycaemic foods raise insulin and blood glucose levels, stimulate fat storage, promote hyperactivity and help increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes, a change to a low-glycaemic diet can be extremely beneficial.

Foods with a low glycaemic index help improve a person’s muscle-to-fat ratio. They also reduce sugar-related energy and mood swings and don’t stimulate the body to store fat. So it’s easy to see why a low-glycaemic diet can help diabetics. It may also help prevent diabetes in the first place or may prevent some of the complications.

The glycaemic index shows how to increase the amount of carbohydrate in a diabetic’s diet without increasing sugar levels. How? By choosing foods with a low-glycaemic index.

Build a Healthy Diet

The glycaemic index of foods is not a measure of sugar in the blood. It shows the effect of a particular food on blood sugar compared to the effect of pure sugar, or glucose. For example, white bread, with a glycaemic index of 70, would cause an increase in blood sugar equal to 70 percent that of sugar, while an apple, with a glycaemic index of 30, would cause an increase in blood sugar equal to only 30% that of sugar.

By using the glycaemic index, diabetics and dieters can learn to choose a nutritious and tasty variety of low-glycaemic foods and still keep their blood sugar – and waistlines – in good shape.