Glycemic index may be helpful in low-carb eating; index ranks various types of carbohydrates

• With the recent low-carbohydrate craze, dieters avoid foods such as pasta and potatoes to limit fluctuations in their blood sugar.
• The glycemic index ranks carbohydrates by how much a person's blood sugar rises immediately after eating.
• Smith usually uses the index when teaching diabetic patients how to adjust their diets, but recently, people on low-carb diets have been using the table for weight-loss purposes.
• Other health professionals think the concept of the index is too complicated to explain and put into practice.
• Proponents of basing a diet on the glycemic index, however, maintain that eating foods lower on the list could provide many health benefits, including weight loss.
• The glycemic index compares foods' carbohydrate content, gram for gram, says Dr. Thomas Wolever, a professor in the department of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto.
• At the time, glucose was used as the standard to which other foods were compared.
• Since then, tests have been done using white bread as the reference, but Dr. Wolever still prefers to use glucose.
• After digestion, they release glucose into the blood stream at a gradual rate, which causes a smaller rise in the blood sugar.
• Therefore, eating according to the glycemic index would improve a person's control of diabetes, he says.
• Eating foods low on the glycemic index doesn't mean a person would never eat a food that is higher on the table, such as white bread, Dr. Wolever says.
• If a person wants to eat a food such as rice, Dr. Wolever suggests choosing a type of rice lower on the list -- parboiled rice, for example.
• The glycemic index is a good tool for people who are putting a fair amount of time into considering what they eat, she says.