Explaining The Glycemic Index And Glycemic Load Of Foods

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Explaining The Glycemic Index And Glycemic Load Of Foods

What do the glycemic index and glycemic load of a food refer to, and how do they affect your health?

The following article, which was first written and published on another website in 2008 and updated with more material, explains these two concepts.


What is the Glycemic Index? – the glycemic index explained


About glycemic index – the glycemic index explained

What is the glycemic index?

The glycemic index, or GI for short, was formulated by Dr David J Jenkins and his colleagues in the early 1980s at the University of Toronto. It is a scale which measures how much carbohydrate-rich foods raise blood glucose levels, in relation to glucose or white bread.

When we eat foods with carbohydrates, they are broken down during digestion and converted to glucose (sugar). Our bodies then use the glucose for energy, to fuel various processes.

Thus, after eating, our blood glucose levels rise. How quickly the foods we eat raise our blood glucose levels is termed the ‘glycemic response’.


What is glycemic index?

When we fix the amount of available carbohydrates eaten, and then compare the impact of a food on blood glucose levels to the impact on blood sugar levels of the same amount of a base food, usually glucose but sometimes also white bread, then we arrive at a particular figure, termed the ‘glycemic index’.

If the carbohydrates in a certain food break down quickly during digestion, thus releasing glucose at a relatively faster rate into the bloodstream, the food is considered to have a high GI.

Conversely, if the carbohydrates in another food break down slowly during digestion, thus releasing glucose at a relatively slower rate into the bloodstream, then the food would be considered to have low GI.

The rate of release of glucose into our bloodstreams has a direct impact on the rate of fluctuation of insulin levels in our bodies.

Do note that foods with little or no carbohydrates in them do not typically have a glycemic index value.


What is the glycemic index affected by?

There are a few factors which determine glycemic response, including the amount of food eaten, the degree of food processing carried out, as well as the method of food preparation and cooking.

A few factors usually influence the glycemic index value of a certain food, among them the amount of fiber in the food; the type of starch which is contained in the food; how the starch molecules are physically contained within the food; and the amount of fat and protein in the food.

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