Читать книгу The Insulin Factor: Can’t Lose Weight? Can’t Concentrate? Can’t Resist Sugar? Could Syndrome X Be Your Problem? - Antony Haynes - Страница 38

The Glycemic Index (GI) is a numerical system of measuring how fast a carbohydrate triggers a rise in circulating blood sugar – the higher the number, the greater the blood sugar response. So a low GI food will cause a small rise, while a high GI food will trigger a dramatic spike. A GI of 70 or more is high, a GI of 56 to 69 inclusive is medium and a GI of 55 or less is low.

The Glycemic Load (GL) is a relatively new way to assess the impact of carbohydrate consumption. It takes the Glycemic Index into account, but gives a fuller picture than the Glycemic Index alone. A Glycemic Index score tells you only how rapidly a particular carbohydrate turns into sugar – but it doesn’t tell you how much of that carbohydrate is in a serving of a particular food (i.e. the GI is a qualitative measure, whereas the GL is a quantitative measure). You need to know both things to understand a food’s effect on blood sugar. The carbohydrate in watermelon, for example, has a high GI, but there isn’t a lot of it, so watermelon’s Glycemic Load is relatively low. A GL of 20 or more is high, a GL of 11 to 19 inclusive is medium and a GL of 10 or less is low. Foods that have a low GL almost always have a low GI. Foods with an intermediate or high GL range from very low to very high GI. There is a detailed table in the Resources section showing the GI and GL of common foods.