How Low Glycemic Foods Guard Against Diabetes

Need a good reason to adopt a low glycemic diet? How about preventing and reversing diabetes.

After a high-glycemic load meal, blood sugar spikes and the body must produce enough insulin to effectively shuttle blood sugar into cells. This high demand for insulin is taxing to the beta cells of the pancreas, which can lead to insulin resistance and diabetes.

In fact, The Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) found that women with the highest dietary glycemic loads were 37% more likely to develop diabetes over the next 6 years than women with the lowest dietary glycemic loads.

But choosing low-glycemic carbs can help stabilize blood sugar, making less work for your endocrine engine while helping to reduce the risk for diabetes and heart disease.

Low Glycemic Foods For Lower Blood Sugar

Diabetes is simply classified by your blood sugar level. And a low glycemic diabetes meal plan coupled with an exercise regime for weight loss have been clinically proven—in countless studies—to transform a diagnosis of “diabetes” to “diabetes-free” by bringing blood sugar back to a healthy range. It can be that simple.

The chart below shows how your blood sugar correlates to diabetes.

Tracking and monitoring your blood sugar and body measurements is important to prevent diabetes complications.

Not only will eating low glycemic foods on your diabetes diet help to get your blood sugar in balance, but also help stave off dangerous complications like heart disease.

Grain-Free, Low Glycemic Foods Prevent Diabetes

Let’s take a look at the research:

Low glycemic benefits Type 2 and Type 1 diabetes and heart disease risk: A low glycemic diet helps people with type-2 and type-1 diabetes, according to a Cochrane review . In addition, this healthy diabetes diet decreases glycated hemoglobin or A1C, an independent risk factor for heart disease and stroke.

Low glycemic eating slashes inflammation: A study published in the journal Circulation found that high blood sugar acutely boosts levels of inflammatory cytokines in the body. What’s more, the researchers found high blood sugar does this by promoting both inflammation and oxidation. Eating a low glycemic diet to stabilize your blood sugar also reduces inflammation.

Grain-free, low glycemic is best diabetes diet: Researchers evaluated the effects of a “low-glycemic/low-grain” diet compared to a “high-cereal fiber” diet on patients with type 2 diabetes. At the end of the six-month study, researchers found that the low-glycemic/low-grain diet reduced dangerous glycated hemoglobin (A1C) levels while boosting healthy cholesterol; the high-fiber diet was far less effective in both measures, leading researchers to suggest foods such as beans, peas, lentils, nuts, flaxseed and quinoa for a healthy diabetes diet.

In addition to checking out hundreds of low glycemic, grain free diabetes recipes (including desserts!) and learning about the grain free low glycemic index foods you should be enjoying, , be sure to check out the seven foods that can reduce the glycemic impact of any meal.