The G. I. Diet

allnurses Guide · Dec 5, 2005

The low GI diet is becoming increasingly popular here although we have YET to convince the hospital kitchen to go along with the idea. I was wondering - how popular is it in the USA?
Is it the diet of choice for diabetics or is it still a fringe idea?

Never heard of it. My dh is diabetic - can you provide a link?

Thanks.

steph

gwenith, BSN, RN · Dec 5, 2005

Thought it might be more an Aussie thing Steph as some of it at least has come out of the Sydney University Nutrition dept.

Basically they lined up some young healthy non-diabetic volunteers and fed them whatever - ie 100 grams of potato - they then took the volunteers BSL's every 15 minutes for four hours and graphed the result. The higher the rise of the Blood Sugar Level the higher the GI index. Most books though don't give the absolute numbers and just break foods up into low medium and high GI. The idea of the diet is to try and eat only low to medium GI foods.

http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/diet/gi_diet.htm

Tweety, BSN, RN · Dec 5, 2005

It hasn't caught on here.

But the South Beach Diet, that uses the Glycemic Index in it's list of good is popular here, or it was the diet de jour last year. :)

I would like to see our dieticians and educators use the GI in diabetic teaching, rather than counting carbs, because people are counting carbs high on the GI and that's not as healthy.

I noticed the GI website from Austrailia was closed the last time I looked at it. Too bad.

gwenith, BSN, RN · Dec 5, 2005

The diabetes UK website has the GI diet as well

http://www.diabetes.org.uk/faq/GI.htm

Tweety this site is good because it also explains about Glycaemic load

http://www.nutritionaustralia.org/Food_Facts/FAQ/glycemic_index_faq.asp

I KNOW this diet has worked because I have lost 8 kilos while on it (Yay!!!) and the loss is around 1-2 lb a week just as they say.

llg, PhD, RN · Dec 5, 2005

Using the Glycemic Index has definitely caught on in the USA for people interested in weight loss. A lot of products and programs aimed at the general consumer interested in weight loss market themselves by saying that their products and/or services are based on the G.I.

But as I don't work with diabetic patients, I don't know how it is viewed by those folks.

llg