I’ve touched on this topic before, but after listening to a former national spokesperson for the American Diabetes Association talk about this topic the other night, I really think it’s important to go more in depth with the importance of glycemic index and its role in weight loss, diabetes, and better health.  If you haven’ already done so, make sure you read my article on simple sugars. 

So to review, glycemic index refers to the rate at which carbohydrates are broken down into glucose and absorbed into our blood stream.  The higher the glycemic index number, the faster this process happens, and the faster our blood sugar is raised. 

For example, glucose (the sugar that’s the body’s source of energy) is considered a perfect 100 on the glycemic index scale.  No surprise there since carbs are broken down into glucose.  Now if you were to eat pure glucose, your blood sugar would spike very quickly.  For a non-diabetic, this isn’t the smartest thing.  Sometimes though, when blood sugar levels of individuals, such as diabetics, drop so low, they need to eat a food with a lot of glucose in order to get their blood sugar levels back to normal.

So why do we want to stay away from high glycemic foods?  First, let’s picture your energy level throughout the day.  As I’ve talked about before, your energy level can be seen as a rollercoaster throughout the day.  When you eat, your metabolism increases.  As a result of the breakdown of food, your blood sugar also increases.  The problem is, if you eat too much at one time, your blood sugar spikes and this leads to the inevitable drop in blood sugar.  When your blood sugar drops, you get hungry, you eat again, and the whole process starts over.  This is why it’s suggested that eating every 2-3 hours is best because you reduce the blood sugar spikes of a big meal by not eating too many calories at one time; your calorie eating is spread throughout the entire day instead.

So what does glycemic index have to do with spiking blood sugar levels?  Well first off, since higher glycemic index foods lead to faster spikes in blood sugar and the resulting drops, this means that you’ll start craving more calories than your body actually needs, and you’ll end up eating too much throughout the day.  That’s the first reason: high glycemic foods lead to more calories being eaten throughout the day.  The more excess calories eaten, the more body fat is stored, and the faster those pants, from college, won’t fit anymore.

Unfortunately, this reason is the better of the other reasons.  To better understand the next reason, let’s look at insulin and its role with blood sugar.

Hopefully you’ve read the simple sugars article, but if you haven’t, I want to review what insulin does.  In the most basic explanation possible, insulin helps deliver food to our cells.  It takes the glucose in our blood stream (the blood sugar) and transports it into our cells for energy.

Here’s the problem.  High glycemic meals have been shown to cause the capillaries walls to constrict for up to 4 hours.  If high glycemic meals are eaten too often, what do you think happens?  You guessed it; the capillaries are constantly constricting.  Just like any muscle, when a muscle contracts/constricts, it grows.  This is actually a bad thing for the capillaries.  As the capillary walls grow, they essentially thicken, and as a result, the insulin that’s normally carrying the glucose out of the bloodstream, through the capillary walls, and into the body’s cells can’t make it past the thickened walls anymore.  As a result, your body responds by cranking up the release of insulin because just like in a war, the more soldiers there are to fight the bad guys, the faster the bad guys can be defeated.  As a result of the difficulty getting through the capillary walls, a lot of the excess insulin takes the easy way out and decides to take a detour to the waist, thighs, and stomach.  All this excess glucose that the insulin takes out of the bloodstream is converted and deposited as fat; definitely a bad thing. 

It gets worse.  This problem of eating high glycemic foods, too often, not only thickens the capillary walls and causes weight gain, it can also get so bad to the point that there’s so much insulin running around in your body that your body essentially gives up.  Just like the thickening capillary walls, your cells will start to resist letting insulin deposit glucose into them.  As a result, your body can’t produce enough insulin to control your blood sugar levels, your blood sugar levels rise out of control, and your body develops diabetes!

Diabetes is a very scaring disease; it’s not something to mess around with.  Diabetes can result in blindness, cardiovascular disease, kidney failure, nerve damage, infections, and amputations just to name a few. 

This is why a diabetic has to stay away from high glycemic foods.  If he doesn’t, his blood sugar will spike, and without medication or an insulin pump, it’ll be very hard to bring it back down.  The good news, something as simple as making smart eating choices can help prevent all of this from happening. 

Now I’m not saying we should never eat high glycemic foods or carbohydrates again.  First off, carbs are essential for your body.  Those that say carbs are bad for the body need to have their heads examined.  Carbs are to the body as gas is to a car.  Both are necessary to run the “engine”, but if abused, they can lead to bad consequences.  Second, moderation is key to high glycemic foods.  A dessert now and then isn’t going to kill you; we all need to have a little fun, but continual eating patterns of high glycemic foods can lead to the awful results of weight gain and diabetes.

The biggest tip when it comes to high glycemic foods, and I know you’ve heard it before, stay away from continual eating of the whites: white bread, white rice, white sugar, white flour, and white potatoes.

If you’re wondering what’s considered a high glycemic food, just Google “high glycemic foods”, and you’ll find all kinds of cool stuff.

Hopefully now you can see the importance of making smart choices when it comes to eating.  Remember, moderation is key.  As long as you keep the frequency of eating high glycemic foods down, you’ll help keep your body healthier, keep your weight more controlled, and decrease your risk for diabetes.

Dan Falkenberg, BA, ACE-CPT, NASM-PES

Dan can be reached at DanFalkenberg.com.