Your Health: Diabetes, the lower the better

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Your Health: Diabetes, the lower the better
February 1, 2009
By : Datuk Dr Rajen M.
The New Straits Times Online

The glycaemic index for broccoli, spinach and cauliflower rate a zero.
Maintaining a low-glycemic diet by consuming food with low GI carbs lowers diabetes.

Diabetes, The three major food groups from where you get your energy are proteins, fats and carbohydrates.

However, different carbohydrates behave quite differently in our bodies. The glycaemic index (GI) is a scientific ranking of foods based on their immediate effect on blood sugar levels.

Many everyday carbohydrate- based foods have been tested and given a ranking between one and 100, depending on the speed at which they release their sugars into the bloodstream.

Carbohydrate foods that break down quickly during digestion have the highest glycaemic indices (GIs of 70 or above). Their blood sugar response is fast and high.

Carbohydrates that break down slowly, releasing glucose gradually into the bloodstream, have low glycaemic indices (GIs of less than 55).

Up until recently, it was believed that carbohydrates could be divided into two main categories simple and complex.

Simple carbohydrates consists of sweet, sugary foods, such as cakes, biscuits, sweets, chocolate, jam and honey.

Complex carbohydrates consists of the more starchy foods, such as bread, potatoes, rice, pasta and cereals.

It was commonly thought that sweet, simple carbohydrates causes our blood sugar levels to rise far more rapidly and gives us a quicker energy burst than the starchy, complex ones.

Now, thanks to the creation of the glycaemic index, we know this is not the case and foods such as baked potatoes and some types of bread tend to have a far higher GI and cause a far greater surge in blood sugar levels than many sweeter, more sugary foods.

The GI Diet was developed by Dr David J. Jenkins, a professor of nutrition at the University of Toronto. So it is perhaps no great surprise that researchers at the University of Toronto went a little further with it.

They did a study in which 210 Type Two diabetics were assigned to follow one of two diets for six months.

Diet �One� was a �highcereal fiber� diet that included whole-grain breads, brown rice, potatoes, and breakfast cereal.

Diet �Two � was a lowglycemic diet that included foods that are known to prompt a slow increase in blood sugar levels, such as beans, berries, oatmeal, and breads such as rye and pumper nickel.

In the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Toronto team reported two key results for subjects who followed the low glycemic diet: � increased �good� HDL cholesterol (HDL actually dropped in the high-cereal diet group) � HbA1c levels were moderately lowered compared to the high-cereal group.

HbA1c is a better way to measure blood sugar management because it measures blood sugar levels over the long term. It is not affected by daily fluctuat i o n s.

In a 2004 review of 13 HbA1c studies, researchers concluded that with every one-point increase in HbA1c, heart disease and stroke risk rises by nearly 20 per cent. But when HbA1c drops, these risk factors drop as well.

Do you enjoy rice, chapati, and bread? You can actually eat certain varieties of those foods and still maintain a low-glycemic diet.

All you need is a good guide to show you exactly which foods rate high on the glycemic index, and which foods rate low.

One excellent online resource is www. glycemicindex.

com It provides detailed listings of hundreds of foods and their GI rankings.

A low GI is 55 and below, medium is 56 to 69, and anything above 69 is high and is best avoided.

For instance, the GI for broccoli is zero, but the GI for a comparable serving of sweetcorn is 54. Spinach and cauliflower both rate a zero, but a baked potato is 85.

Datuk Dr Rajen M. is a pharmacist with a doctorate in holistic medicine. Email him at health@po.jaring.my.

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