what is glycemic index
August 10, 2010 by admin
Filed under Featured, understanding diabetes fact
What is Glycemic index?
Glycemic index is a standard means to measure the effect of how much the food can increase our blood glucose level. High Glycemic food means that the food glucose will increase high glucose level in our blood after eating. This Glycemic index is developed in University of Toronto in 1981. This index is very useful for anyone who needs to plan their healthy diet for diabetes.
In recent year, more and more people are diagnosed of contracting this chronic disease. Even though lots of money has been invested into fighting diabetes but the results is not obvious.
So, understanding Glycemic index is very important in our diabetes management plan.
Carbohydrates is the source of our body energy. Different types of carbohydrates will certainly have different way of breaking down in the system. People with diabetes will have problem in digesting certain foods, especially those high in carbohydrates. As the digestion is not effective, the sugar and starches may enter into blood stream and causing too much blood glucose.
That is why the diabetics are always being warned to reduce the amount of carbohydrate as it takes longer time to break down and absorbed. If excess glucose in the blood stream, the glucose will start build up in the blood stream.
The Glycemic index is very useful because this index rates different carbonhydtrates from different food source. The Glycemic index ranges from 1 to 100. A good glcemic index should have ratings below 55, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains. However, for food that has Glycemic Indext more than 70 is considered quite high and diabetic should always keep away from this kind of food.
Understanding Glycemic index is imperative for anyone who has been diagnosed as borderline diabetic. So, it is advisable to understand this Glycemic index so that you will know how to manage your diabetes condition correctly with diet control.
