Low-glycemic diet
The glycemic index diet mainly food should be consumed with a low glycemic index. The fat, protein, carbohydrate and calorie amount of food, however, is of secondary importance. The name comes from the Low carb nutrition scientist Marion Grillparzer, which in 1999 introduced the term glycemic index as shorthand for " glycemic index ". The diet is related to the Montignac method and the logistics method. They recommend your representatives for weight loss, but also as a permanent diet. The method includes more than just limited consumption of foods with high glycemic index. It is designed as a complete diet, the emphasis on dietary fiber, essential fatty acids, vitamins, drink plenty of fluids etc..
The principle
The glycemic index ( GI, GI ) describes the blood glucose response after a meal and thus, indirectly, the insulin response of the body. It is defined as the relative area of the two-hour blood glucose curve after ingestion of 50 grams of carbohydrates. The GI indicates how fast a carbohydrate- containing food digested and released as sugar into the blood. He was originally introduced by physicians who dealt with the diet in diabetes mellitus.
For the diet is a distinction between "good" and "bad" carbohydrates. Carbohydrate foods with high glycemic index, such as glucose, lead to a rapid rise in blood sugar. The body releases a lot of insulin to break down the sugar. The steeper was the rise in blood sugar, the more powerful your insulin response and the faster the blood sugar level drops again, so you quickly get hungry again, so the theory goes.
Foods with low glycemic let the blood sugar levels rise more slowly and the insulin peak values remain off. At high levels of insulin captured fat is not degraded, but is stored by the body. A constantly high insulin levels promotes allegedly the development of diabetes and atherosclerosis. However, this is scientifically controversial.
Some studies showed a positive effect on blood lipid levels and the risk of heart attacks in overweight people who consume foods with low glycemic preferred, this especially when the amount of supplied carbohydrates is reduced overall.
In order to calculate
The glycemic index of sugar ( glucose) is set to a value of 100. Some table works relate the glycemic index value of 100 on the intake of 50 g carbohydrate from white bread. After the glucose standard white bread has a glycemic index of 70, the conversion factor between the two standards is therefore 1.4.
100 is the highest GI value. As low a value below 55 is considered a low glycemic index have, for example, pure milk products, many fruits and vegetables, pasta (whether whole grain or not). The average GI is 55 to 70, to include whole grain bread, apple juice or regular sugar. A high glycemic index have, for example, white rice, white bread and mashed potatoes.
Since the GI alone can lead to strange dietary recommendations - about ice cream has a lower GI than potatoes - Pull the representatives of these and similar diets as a criterion, the glycemic load approach.
Review and Critique
According to the German Nutrition Society of GI for itself alone is not a useful criterion for the evaluation of food: " propagate low GI diets, the solution of the problem obesity alone was the reduction of the glycemic index, the amount of energy and fat intake applies here as irrelevant. In these diets, nutritional facts with false and unsubstantiated assertions are mixed. (...) The assessment of the glycemic index as the sole factor in weight reduction absurd, because the blood sugar efficacy of numerous other factors is also determined, such as liquid content of the diet, temperature, fat and fiber content of a meal. " Recommended foods such as potatoes would be wrong to refuse to.
"The claim of the glycemic index and LOGI- trailer, the supply of high-GI carbs would necessarily " cause excessive " insulin spike, which would lead to a drop in blood sugar levels below the initial level or even to hypoglycemia and thus inevitably lead to cravings, is untenable and devoid of any physiological basis. "
The recorded amount of calories is neglected. Who takes more calories than the body uses, but shall be independent of the glycemic index. Fat contains no carbohydrates and therefore has a low GI, but contains quite a lot of calories. So a slice of bread with butter and cheese has a lower GI than a dry slice of bread. Most foods are not eaten in isolation, but together with others. However, the individual GI values can not simply be added, which leads to incorrect results. In addition, the glycemic response of the body to the same food in the same person varies in some cases considerably, even within a day.
A five-year study of 1255 people, which was published in 2006 in the British Journal of Nutrition, concludes that there is no significant relationship between the glycemic index and blood sugar levels. The study leader Elizabeth Mayer- Davis concluded: " The glycemic index is not helpful for a scientist nor for consumers to develop a healthy diet ."
In a statement, the German Institute of Human Nutrition says: " The causality of associations between glycemic load and risk of disease have so far secured in no case by appropriate intervention studies. The data on the influence of the glycemic index on the body weight gain are still inconsistent and controversial; it is not yet shown that a reduction in glycemic load ( by modification or reduction of the carbohydrate portion of the diet ), other dietary interventions is superior ( eg, reduction of fat ) clearly and effectively. "