Today, there are hundreds of different approaches and types of diets that some people claim to work with diabetes and make it more manageable, but you have to keep in mind that some of them are just fad diets with no long-term benefits, while the others might actually be backed up by scientific evidence, and those are the types of diet that you should look up and actually try.
That being said, you’ve probably heard about the “low glycemic index diet”. In fact, the low GI diet has been shown to induce a number of favorable effects for diabetics and non-diabetics as well, including:
- Improvement of weight loss
- Decrease of fasting glucose and insulin levels needed
- Reduction of circulating triglyceride
- Improvement of blood pressure
Personally, I feel a lot better when my meals tend to have a low glycemic index. One simple example is eating whole grain bread vs. white bread with the same portion size. When I choose the latter, I feel less sluggish and fuller for longer with less hunger pangs.
So what’s the reason behind this? And what is “glycemic index” and why is a low GI diet recommended for patients with diabetes? What are the guidelines to this diet and is there any foods we should eat and others that we should avoid?
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Written by Hiba Ayoubi