If there is one thing I've learned from reading this newsgroup over the
years, it is the extent of that variation among people who share a
common diagnosis of diabetes.

Based on people's posted reports it is clear that the same food that
will give me a 70 mg/dl spike at one hour will pass harmlessly through
someone else.

Perhaps one explanation for is is that the someone else weighs 200 lbs
more than I do.  A little known fact is that the degree that a gram of
carb raises blood sugar varies with the weight of the body absorbing
that carbohydrate.

Another, obvious explanation is that the someone else produces more or
more effective insulin than I do.

Yet another is the drugs that person is using. This includes the obvious
stuff, like Metformin or Amaryl and drugs taken for other things. My
glucose response deteriorated rapidly when I had to stop taking Diovan.
I've subsequently learned that Diovan (which I'd been taking for years)
has a powerful effect on my glucose response. A single 40 mg pill taken
last month dropped my basal response 20 mg/dl (and had me hypoing all
day on top of my insulin dose!)

My experience with so-called Low GI foods was exactly what the articles
suggests. I got no further benefit from learning the supposed GI of
foods than I did from counting the carbs. Eating a "high GI" food with a
lot of fat gives it a different speed of digestion than eating it alone.
Eating enough of a "low GI" food leads to nasty spikes, though maybe a
bit later than expected. Counting the carbs without the extra complexity
gives me a pretty good idea of what my meter will tell me over the next
couple hours.

--Jenny

http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes  Diabetes Info

http://www.alt-support-diabetes.org/newlydiagnosed.htm Get Your Blood
Sugar Under Control

This post not CC'd by email
On 15 Mar 2006 22:47:08 -0800, "morris" <morrisolder@earthlink.net>
wrote:

G'day G'day Morris,

Some tests are done with groups of diabetics.  It takes a bit of
explanation but in time I hope you will see that whether people are
diabetic, non-diabetic or glucose tolerance impaired does NOT matter.

My apologies if I launch into a bit of scientific methodology.
Unfortunately it is necessary here because an incorrect description of
the methodology has led you to reach some perfectly logical yet false
conclusions.

Each participant is tested AGAINST THEMSELVES.  They are not tested
against one another.  Put simply the glycemic index is an INDEX.  What
this means is that the response to some food such as dried apricots is
compared to a standard food (usually prescription baked white bread)
containing the same quantity of carbohydrate (50 grams)

Let's take dried apricots,                    GI 32
The standard white bread used in tests,       GI 70

The ratio is 0.46 or to put it simply the increased area under the
curve for dried apricots is 46% of that for standard white bread.

To simplify the discussion to a point where folks here can follow
along I'll let the height of the spike be representative of the area
under the curve.

Let's take a diabetic  
Their blood glucose might rise 100 mg/dL with the white bread.  
With dried apricots we would EXPECT 46 mg/dL  

Let's another diabetic
Their blood glucose might rise  200 mg/dL with the white bread
With dried apricots we would EXPECT 92 mg/dL

Let's take a non-diabetic
Their blood glucose might rise  50 mg/dL with the white bread
With dried apricots we would EXPECT 23 mg/dL

Notice that in every case the GI calculated from the expected results
would be 32 for the dried apricots.  Of course since it is an index it
doesn't matter if they had used mmol/L as the units.  

Since diabetics are included in testing some allowance has to be made
for the longer time required for their blood glucose to drop to
fasting.  For non-diabetics the area under the curve is measured for
two hours and for diabetics three hours are used.  That is it.

Being diabetic does not of itself affect the GI.  Of course it effects
the height of the spike for a particular food but then it does for the
standard prescription baked white bread as well.  

You could.

GI tables are a better starting point than assuming utter chaos.

On this we agree.  Absolutely.  We need feedback to arrive accurately
at goals. It is the difference between reaching out blindly and
reaching out looking at what you are doing.

Once again total agreement.

Get back to?  IMHO we should never leave that principle.

Best wishes,

My apologies if the discussion on GI measurement seemed long-winded
and unnecessary.  For some people it might well be.  Think of it
though as a compliment that I think enough of people here to want them
to have the best descriptions of something that is important for their
survival.

According to the book I read, by Jennie Brand-Miller, et al,
they compare ONE person's response to numerous foods to get
a G.I. for that food for that person, and they average the
G.I.s for each food.  The implication (I don't remember whether
they explicitly stated it was true) is that the G.I. values
are fairly consistent from person to person.

What this means is that if food A has twice the effect of
food B for you, it will have twice the effect for me--even
if what it's twice of is different for us.

OK, that would make more sense with an actual example, but
I have to run upstairs right away....

While knowledge of GI may be useful in some cases, simply avoiding high-carb
foods and limiting total carb intake is the easiest and most effective
means, for a T2, IMO.

I've read that if you restrict carbs long enough, the body supposedly
produces less of certain enzymes needed to process carbs.  Point being, you
may have slightly better response but its being masked by lack of
carb-processing enzymes.  Or not. :)

Wow! This goes to show, once again, the difference between Type 1 and
Type 2. I would be very happy to have my morning BGs steady at 120.
For me, any lower and I run the risk of going hypo.

Looking at the Glycemic Index another way, I've tried treating low BGs
with supposedly high GI foods. It hasn't made much difference. When it
comes to treating hypos, for me, "carbs are carbs." The really
difficult thing is to stop after eating 15 grams of carbs, while
having the shakes and the cold sweats...

Since I'm not eating chocolate cake, I thought I'd share how I've
recently been upping my chocolate, without adding carbs.

I take about 1 - 2 oz/day of psyllium husks, mixed with a heaping
teaspoon of soy lecithin and ~6 oz of Crystal Light orange juice (which
is sort of an adult Koolaid made with aspartame.)  I'm agnostic about
the health benefits of the lecithin, but it makes the drink taste a lot
better.  And this brings down my LDL enormously.

Anyway, two weeks ago when the latest round of reports came out showing
cardiac benefit from cocoa, I started pondering how to add them to my
diet without adding carbs.  I bought a box of Hershy's Extra Dark cocoa
and started adding a tsp of cocoa to my drink.   I noticed two things
right away
- This tastes GREAT.  The lecithin carries the cocoa nicely, nicely,
and the sweetness and citrus of the Crystal light rounds it out
wonderful!
- This looks awful!  This stuff is amazingly ugly in a tall, clear
glass.  I mean, it looks like the wreck of the Torry Canyon in there.
My family thinks its disgusting.
 WIll it save my heart long term?  don't know.  But even if they
retract all the good things about cocoa, I'm going to keep mixing it
in.

Adam