It's OK to Be Sweet

Health Alert 137

You know carbohydrates can be fattening. But, contrary to what most of my patients have been told, the risks versus healthy benefits of carb foods are not related to their sweetness.

Many carbohydrates spike your blood sugar and stimulate your body to produce insulin. This insulin then causes you to build and store fat. Do it for long enough and this will make you fat and tired. It will also lead to other health problems like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease and diabetes. So how can you tell the difference between carbs that spike insulin and those that are less harmful?

You’ll see, it’s not sweetness that makes the difference. You can use a simple system based on the glycemic index. You can eat certain foods that taste sweet and avoid the real insulin producers.

* Sweetness versus Glycemic Index *

Just because it tastes sweet doesn’t mean that it will spike your blood sugar. That is a concept that many of my patients have a hard time accepting at first. But it makes sense when you look at it in terms of the glycemic index.

The glycemic index is a rank of how carbohydrates in different foods affect blood sugar levels. Carbohydrates that breakdown the quickest have the highest glycemic indexes.

The index is in percentage terms. It is a comparison to pure glucose. For example, a food with a glycemic index of 50% will cause half of the rapid rise in blood sugar that glucose would.

Spiking your blood sugar can cause your body to store extra fat related to your insulin response. The higher the glycemic index of the food you eat, the more fat you’ll make from it – even if it has an equal number of calories.

Glycemic Index Scale

Low Glycemic Index: 0-55

Medium Glycemic Index: 56-69

High Glycemic Index: 70 and up

Notice that most fruit and berries fall in the low glycemic group despite tasting quite sweet. Notice man-made starches like cereals and breads have the very highest glycemic indexes even though they are not sweet. This is a difficult message to get across. We are inundated with ads for starchy cereals touting them as healthy. Some sources including our government are still clinging to the disastrously poor advice of recommending multiple servings of starchy grains every day.

Think of it like this: the starchier the food, the more likely it is to have a high glycemic index. So this would tell you that foods like potatoes, spaghetti, and corn are all high on the glycemic index. Conversely, foods that are naturally sweet but not starchy like berries and most fresh fruit are likely to have low glycemic indexes. In other words fruit is not nearly as fattening as breads, pastas, cereals, potatoes and corn.

* Forget Cereal *

There are many good reasons to try to keep low glycemic foods in your diet. Foods low on the glycemic scale:

• Will help you to feel fuller longer

  
  

  
  

• Cause a smaller rise in blood sugar

  
  

  
  

• Can improve insulin sensitivity

  
  

  
  

• Can inhibit fat storage

  
  

  
  

• May increase your endurance (the fuel doesn’t burn up so quickly)

There is a good database for the glycemic index of foods on the Internet at www.glycemicindex.com . Just type in the food and you will see its glycemic rating.

In short, stay away from foods that are starchy, made from grains, or have been artificially sweetened. The more you reduce these foods that are high on the glycemic index, the better you’ll feel.

On the other hand sweetness is not a necessarily a problem. If a food is naturally sweet and you like it, eat it. When given natural choices, your sweet tooth will serve you well.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears MD

Sources:

1. Foster-Powell K. et al., International table of glycemic index and glycemic load values: 20021,2 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 76, No. 1, 5-56, July 2002