Many packaged foods available in supermarkets come labelled with a glycaemic index (GI) score.
The GI of foods and blood sugar balance may not be quite as straightforward as was once thought.
The glycaemic index (GI) is a measure of how quickly different foods release sugar (glucose) into your bloodstream.
Foods that score over 70 are considered high GI (they release sugar very quickly into your bloodstream) and those that score less than 55 are considered low GI.
Recent study
However, a recent small study in pre-diabetic people has shown that people may respond differently to the same foods.
AND their response may vary depending on what foods are eaten together or what they have already eaten that day.
This means that your response to the same food can vary from day to day too
For example, participant responses to white bread ranged from a GI of 35 to 103… very different responses!
What does this mean for everyday eating?
There is no doubt that there are some foods that have few health benefits other than providing energy. These foods include; pastries, doughnuts, biscuits, sweets and sugary drinks.
And these foods and likely to be foods that spike blood sugar for pretty much everyone, every time…
But this new research suggests that we could dampen our blood glucose response by eating protein alongside a high sugar food.
More research is needed, however, this could change how we think about certain foods and how we eat them.
Such as eating a couple of mouthfuls of protein at the start of each meal may be beneficial for managing blood glucose.
And the study findings suggested that instead of focusing on GI, we eat a diet that is varied and consists of vegetables, whole grains and fish and is limited in red meat and sugary foods and drinks.
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