Nutrition: What is the GI scale and what does it mean?

 
The glycemic index or glycaemic index (GI) is a measure of how quickly blood glucose levels (i.e., blood sugar) rise after eating a particular type of food. Glycemic Index (GI) is a measurement carried out on carbohydrate-containing foods only and their impact on our blood sugar levels, this can help towards curing diebetes.
 
GI is a relatively new way of analysing foods. GI looks at the impact of foods on our actual blood sugar. In other words, instead of counting the total amount of carbohydrate grams in foods, GI measures the actual impact of these foods on our blood sugar. Most nutrition experts rank our foods as being low, medium, or high in their GI value.
 
Why Is GI Important?
 
Over the past decade, low-GI diets have been associated with decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, depression, chronic kidney disease, and cancers of the breast, colon, prostate, and pancreas.
 
Taking advantage of these potential health benefits can be as simple as sticking with whole, natural foods that are either low or very low in their GI value.
 
How Is GI Measured?
 
Typically, a food consumed will provide 50 grams of available carbohydrate for testing. Once a participant has consumed 50 grams of available carbohydrates of that particular food,  blood sugar levels are measured over a period of 2 hours.
 
However meadonv GI levels requires a second step. In this second step, 50 grams of available carbohydrate are consumed by a participant but this time the food involved is one of two reference foods, this is either white bread or pure sugar (glucose).
 
Once again, blood sugar levels are measured over a period of 2 hours. The 2 results are then compared, the impact of the first food on our blood sugar is compared to the impact of either white bread or glucose itself.
 
When these two results are compared, the impact of the white bread or glucose is given a value of 100 to make the comparison easier.
 
Whatever the {e247ef2f99dfc0bc75e074b1ac933c200478cf8913d2da2bbe9d5daddf1eb195} of how quickly the food turns to glucose compared with sugar or white bread that is the particular GI rating of that food, for example if something turned into glucose at say 50{e247ef2f99dfc0bc75e074b1ac933c200478cf8913d2da2bbe9d5daddf1eb195} as quickly as sugar or white bread turned into glucose within the blood stream then their GI rating would be 50.
 
GI Rating System
 
Most nutrition organisations use a low, medium and high rating system for GI. Using this system, foods get classified in the following ways.
 
Low GI    Medium GI    High GI
0-55                 56-69              70 or greater
 
Low GI foods are best for slow release energy and are used to combat problems with obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure today… These are the same good groups that we mention time and time again at ollie Lawrence personal trainer Manchester, whole natural foods to the body.
 
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