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Carb Craving

The Carbohydrate Addiction Test

After a full breakfast, do you get hungry before it's time for lunch? Yes No
Do you have a difficult time stopping, once you start to eat starches, snack foods, junk food, or sweets? Yes No
Do you sometimes feel unsatisfied even though you have just finished a meal? Yes No
Does the sight, smell, or even the thought of food, sometimes stimulate you to eat? Yes No
Do you sometimes eat even though you are not really hungry? Yes No
Are you sometimes unable to keep from snacking at night? Yes No
After a large meal, do you feel very sluggish, almost drugged? Yes No
Do you get unexplainably tired and/or hungry in the afternoon? Yes No
Have you at times continued eating even though you felt uncomfortably full? Yes No
Have you been on diet after diet, only to lose weight then regain it again? Yes No

Yes:


Carbs, Not Fat Cause Weight Gain

There are many conditions in Western industrialized societies today that were unheard of, or at least very rare, just a century ago. The same conditions are still unheard of in primitive peoples who do not have the 'benefits' of our knowledge. There is a very good reason for this: They eat what Nature intended; we don't. The diseases caused by our incorrect and unnatural diets are those featured on these pages.

Carbs appear to be the only foods that increase body weight.  This is heresy to the 'healthy eating' dictocrats, but it is demonstrably true. This is how it works:

Carbohydrates, It doesn't matter whether these are in sugar, jam, bread, pasta, breakfast cereals, fruit or vegetables — are all exactly the same as far as your body is concerned: they are all ultimately converted to the blood sugar, glucose.

All carbs are digested very quickly, within a few minutes. This means that within a very short time after a carb-rich 'healthy' meal the level of glucose in your bloodstream will rise rapidly as is demonstrated in the graph at Figure 1. (Note that this shows very clearly that eating fat does not raise blood glucose.)

High blood glucose levels are dangerous and, as levels of glucose rise rapidly in the bloodstream, your pancreas rapidly produces a large amount of insulin to take the excess glucose out as is demonstrated in Figure 2. Note that just as eating fat does not raise blood glucose, it doesn't raise insulin levels either. This is an important point as insulin is the hormone ultimately responsible for body fat storage. And as fats do not elicit an insulin response, they cannot be stored as body fat. Those who tell you that eating fat makes you fat, just don't understand how the body works.

Insulin takes the glucose out of the bloodstream. It is converted first into a form of starch called glycogen which is stored in the liver and in muscles. But as the body can store only a limited amount of glycogen in this way, all other excess glucose is stored as body fat. This is the process of putting on weight.

And there is a further aspect to be considered: There is an inevitable time delay between cause and effect. As you can see in the two graphs, when your blood glucose level is back down to normal, after about 90 minutes, the insulin level in your bloodstream is still near its maximum and continually stacking glucose away in your fat cells. As a result, the levels of glucose in your blood fall below normal, and you soon feel hungry again (it's called 'the Chinese meal syndrome', where an hour or so after a Chinese meal you feel like another one). So you have a snack, usually of more carbohydrates, bread sandwiches, biscuits or sweets, and start the whole process over again. You're getting fatter but feeling hungry at the same time. The next problem is that insulin resistance caused by the continual high insulin levels in your bloodstream impairs its ability to satisfy a satiety centre in the brain. This contributes even more to overeating, obesity, and diabetes.[2]

This is the first crucial problem with the 'healthy eating' dogma. Eating the 'healthy' way, you can eat far more calories than your body needs as energy for the day, yet still feel hungry – and eat more. You enter a vicious cycle of continuous weight gain combined with hunger. Under such circumstances it is almost impossible not to overeat. Obesity is almost inevitable.[3]

Not surprisingly, a high insulin response to glucose has been shown to be a risk factor for long-term weight gain, and this effect is particularly so in people who are insulin-resistant.[4]


“Healthy Eating” Prevents Weight Loss?

So far we have covered only half of the obesity problem. You've put the weight on, now you need to get it off again. Here again, 'healthy eating' hampers your attempts because eating a carbohydrate-based diet also stops you from losing that excess weight.

If you are overweight, what is it that you actually want to lose? That's not as silly a question you might think. You don't want to lose weight – you can do that by having a leg amputated; what you really want to lose is fat. Right?

The point is that, to lose fat, your body must use that fat as a fuel; there is no other way. And the only way your body will use its stored fat as a fuel is if you force it to. That means depriving it of its present supply of fuel , the blood sugar, glucose – so that it has no choice in the matter.

There are two ways to cut your body's glucose supply:
  • you either starve, which is what low-calorie, low-fat dieting is, or
  • you reduce the starches and sugars from which glucose is made and make it up with a source of a different fuel, fat.

This latter approach has two advantages over the traditional calorie-controlled approach: it means that you no longer have to go hungry and, by feeding your body on fats, it will stop trying to find glucose and change over naturally to using its own stored fat. This is by far the easiest way because:

'In the presence of dietary carbohydrate, the preferred fuel is glucose and the capacity to mobilize fat is limited. Factors that increase blood glucose during dieting may stimulate insulin release and all the metabolic sequelae of circulating insulin. Fatty acid synthesis is activated and lipolysis is profoundly inhibited by insulin even at very low concentrations of the hormone.'[5]

What this means is that, if you continue to eat a carbohydrate-based, low-fat 'healthy' diet, you force your body into a fat-making (fatty acid synthesis) mode, not a fat-using (lipolysis) mode. Insulin inhibits the production of hormone sensitive lipase, a fat-burning enzyme, thereby preventing your body's fat cells releasing their fat.[6] This effectively stops your body from burning your stored fat and makes it well nigh impossible for you to lose the weight you have put on.

References

1. Robertson MD, Henderson RA, Vist GE, Rumsey RDE. Extended effects of evening meal carbohydrate-to-fat ratio on fasting and postprandial substrate metabolism. Am J Clin Nutr 2002; 75: 505-510.

Low Carb at the Supermarket

Food manufacturers are always trying to jump on the latest fad diet craze by rolling out a new line of food guaranteed to be "low fat," or "low carb." The only problem is, this tiny aspect of a food's nutritional properties really doesn't tell you the information you need to make a healthy choice.

The Fat-Free Fallacy

Nutrition and weight-management experts agree that keeping hunger under control is one of the keys to successful weight loss and maintenance. During the mid-1990s, at the height of the fat-free, processed-foods rage, dieters would often reach for these "diet" foods to help them stay on their weight-loss plan. Unfortunately, since those foods were usually high in sugar and refined flour, they caused unsuspecting dieters to experience roller coaster energy swings and increased hunger. Instead of being a weight-management solution, these products contributed to the weight-control problem. Even now, many dieters don't realize they need to be wary of fat-free products and to eat them only in moderation. A fat-free donut may still be high in calories. What consumers also didn't realize, or conveniently forgot, was that "fat free" is not synonymous with "calorie free." Consumers behaved as if the fat-free products had put unlimited quantities of previously forbidden foods, such as cookies and ice cream and chips, back on the dieting menu. They could have their fat-free cake and eat it, too, believing that as long as it was fat free, they would be, too. And they didn't stop at eating just a couple of cookies; they ate the whole box. While patiently waiting for their favorite treat to be restocked on the grocer's shelves, dieters forgot about the one basic weight-loss premise that never changes: Too many calories in and not enough out = weight gain.

If these foods were fat free, why weren't they also calorie free? Why did some of the fat-free varieties pack even more calories than the original version? When manufacturers remove the fat, which adds flavor and mouthfeel to food, they must replace it with something to keep the food tasty. For sweets that replacement is sugar. While it's true that sugar is fat free, it still has lots of calories, so eating a gallon of fat-free ice cream will never help you lose that excess weight.

Another reason many people overate fat-free foods is that often, no matter how hard they tried, manufacturers just couldn't match the flavor of the original version. People felt unsatisfied regardless of how much they ate. After polishing off a box of fat-free candies, it was typical for dieters to go searching for "the real thing" in order to feel satisfied. In the end people ate more calories than if they'd had a few of the originals in the first place. Fat-free foods have their place, but they're a weight-loss tool only if used properly. And they're definitely not the answer.


Carb Buyer Beware!

There are some foods now sporting a low-carb label that have always been naturally low in carbohydrate. Natural peanut butter (the kind without added sugar) is a good example. In general, nuts come by their low-carb title without any help from food manufacturers. Cashews have a bit more carbohydrate than other varieties, but when compared to other natural foods, such as honey, the carbohydrate content is minimal.

Many other foods also need no help from manufacturers to earn a low-carb title. These include lettuce; berries; cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower; protein foods such as lean meats, chicken, fish, cheese, and soy products; cantaloupe; honeydew melon; and tomatoes.

If you see a low-carb label on any of the products listed above, don't be fooled into thinking they're somehow more low-carb than they would be without the label. Eaten on their own (meaning not part of combination dishes where carbohydrates from other foods come into play), these are simply low-carb foods.

There are some foods naturally low in carbohydrate that become higher in carbs because of the way they are manufactured. Yogurt is a good example. Plain yogurt has little or no carbohydrate, only 15 grams in 8 ounces, and this is from naturally occurring milk sugar. However, many yogurt products contain added sugar, giving them unnaturally high carb counts. You should also realize that added sugar increases the calorie count as well as the total carbohydrate.


The Scoop on Low-carb Products

The fat-free craze of the 1990s didn't have quite the impact on obesity that was expected. Experts were correct in predicting the same outcome for low-carb and carb-free products.

How did manufacturers make foods low carb? It's all about the substitution of ingredients. The particular type of product dictates which substitute is used. Some substitutes include soy flour, xanthan gum, psyllium husk, and artificial sweeteners.

By using a flour, such as soy flour, that contains more protein or fiber than refined white flour does, manufacturers reduce the total carbohydrate in a product. Sometimes they substitute all the flour in a product, and sometimes they substitute only a portion of it.

Xanthan gum, a natural product, is used to replace gluten (a type of protein found in flour) and acts as a substitute binder in products that don't use flour. Baked goods require gluten for structure (breads require the most; cookies the least), and so low-carb products that contain less flour or no flour need a substitute to prevent them from crumbling or falling apart. For instance, a mixture of finely ground nuts and sweetener can stand in as a low-carb crust, but the final product will be crumbly and won't hold together well. Instead of adding flour, which also adds carbs, manufacturers of low-carb products add a small amount of xanthan gum.

High-fiber psyllium is sometimes added to low-carb foods to increase their fiber content. That helps reduce the amount of "net carbs" (the marketing term manufacturers use) because net carbs are calculated by deducting fiber from the amount of total carb. If a product has more fiber, it contains fewer net carbs and has less effect on blood sugar and weight gain.

The sugar replacers used in low-carb foods, such as the artificial sweetener Splenda or the sugar alcohols mannitol or sorbitol, add sweetness without the carbohydrate and calories from sugar.

All of these substitutions, used either alone or together, do produce a decrease in total carbohydrate. However, how substantial the reduction is varies from product to product. Sometimes the reduction is so small that it has a negligible effect.

Clearly fad diets that say, "Never eat carbs!" or, "Eat nothing but carbs!" have not done their homework. The type of carbs you eat or when you eat them can be vastly more important than the quantity. Now that you understand the effects that carbs have on your body, you can build the diet that is right for you.


How To Choose The Right Carbohydrates

True or false: A carb is a carb is a carb. If you answered "true," you might think all carbohydrate-containing foods are created equal because they all break down into glucose. But they're not all the same. Some carb foods are better for you than others. Knowing how to make better carbohydrate choices means you'll be eating healthier and are likely to have more energy and find it easier to lose weight.

When choosing carbs, it's particularly important to keep in mind the distinction between simple and complex carbs. Simple carbs are digested more quickly and raise blood sugar levels faster and more dramatically. Complex carbs, on the other hand, take the digestive system longer to break down, and so they enter the bloodstream more slowly, raising blood sugar levels gradually. In this article, we will teach how to choose the carbs that are right for you. It's not just a matter of counting carbs, you have to know the good carbs from the bad carbs.


Understanding the Glycemic Index

You know the general guidelines for choosing the most beneficial carbohydrates: Pick complex carbohydrates that are packed with nutrients and raise your blood sugar levels gradually. In general, that means choosing whole grains, vegetables, and fruits and avoiding foods with added sugars. But to make the best carbohydrate choices, there is a more precise way to know how a particular food will raise your blood sugar levels. You can use the glycemic index (GI), which is a ranking of foods by how quickly they raise blood sugar levels compared to other foods.

Developed by researchers at the University of Toronto, the GI was originally created to help people with diabetes select foods that would help them better manage their chronic condition. It was well-established that stable blood sugar levels helped reduce the likelihood of developing complications associated with diabetes, such as hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) or hyperglycemia (high blood sugar), kidney disease, nerve damage, and blindness. But at the time, the conventional wisdom was that all carbohydrate foods had exactly the same effect on blood sugar, even though some studies showed that this was not the case. The researchers set out to show that some carbohydrate foods impact blood sugar more than others.

We now know that while all digested carbohydrates become glucose, different carbohydrate foods have different effects on blood sugar. For people with diabetes, eating a specific amount of total carbohydrate each day helps them maintain blood sugar levels as close to normal as possible. However, the type of carbohydrate is particularly important. And even if you don't have diabetes, it's wise to choose complex carbohydrates because they're better at keeping blood sugar levels stable.

In recent years, research has begun to focus on other uses for the GI. It may help guide weight-loss efforts and has potential as a component of dietary intervention for cardiovascular disease. In fact, the GI is being discussed in the mainstream media, as well as in clinical situations, in connection with the treatment and management of heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure as well as diabetes. Although additional research is needed, scientific evidence is mounting that a diet of high glycemic-index foods may increase the risk of these and possibly other diseases.

The Fat-Free Fallacy

The glycemic index ranks foods according to their immediate effect on blood sugar levels in comparison to other foods. The ranking is done by establishing the effect of 50 grams of available carbohydrate (the total amount of carbohydrate minus fiber) in a control food on blood sugar levels. The control food, originally white bread, was assigned the number 100. Once that was established, researchers tested equal amounts (50 grams of available carbohydrate) of various foods and compared blood sugar response to the control food. Any food that raised blood sugar levels more than white bread had a higher number, while foods that raised blood sugar less than white bread had a lower number.

Today, some researchers have chosen to use glucose as the control food instead of white bread. Glucose, then, is given the value of 100 and all foods are compared to its effect on blood sugar instead. When white bread is used as the control food, the GI rank of glucose is 140, since it raises blood sugar levels more than glucose. For you to use the GI index, though, it doesn't matter which method was used in testing the foods, as the idea is the same. The GI value of a food lets you compare its effect on your blood sugar relative to other foods. That can help you make wiser food choices, including choosing better, healthier carbohydrates.

There are only a few nutrition research groups in the world that have tested the glycemic response and compiled GI values. They use a very strict testing protocol to determine the GI value of each food. Let's say they want to find out the GI value of dried apricot. Researchers use a test food and a control food. In this case, dried apricots would be the test food, and white bread or glucose would be the control food. The subjects (usually 8 to 10 participants) are given enough dried apricots to provide 50 grams of available carbohydrate (approximately 27 apricot halves). Their blood sugar response is then tested and plotted on a graph every 15 minutes during the first hour and every 30 minutes during the second hour. The same procedure is used after they ingest 50 grams of available carbohydrate from glucose or white bread (the control food). The two values are compared, and the data pulled from the graph is calculated using a computer program. Finally, the average GI from all the test subjects for the test food is calculated from the collected data.

In general, low-GI foods have scores below 55. Moderate-GI foods score between 55 and 70, while high-GI foods score above 70. As you can see, the lower the GI, the slower the blood glucose response to that food. Using the GI, you can select foods that elicit a slow, steady rise in blood sugar resulting in stable blood sugar levels that keep energy high and stave off hunger.

Sometimes the glycemic index can be misleading. In the next section, learn more about how to use the glycemic index.Glycemic Load and the Glycemic Index

While the GI is a useful tool when choosing between carbohydrates, there's another ranking system that may be more practical. The GI system ranks individual foods, which allows you to compare one to another in isolation. Yet we rarely eat only one single food at a time, and that's where the GI system has some limitations. Many factors can affect the rate at which a carbohydrate is digested and raises blood glucose levels. For instance, if you eat protein and fat along with carbohydrate, it is digested more slowly and raises blood sugar levels more gradually. Other factors that can have an impact on the GI of any food are:

  • Degree of ripeness. For example, the more ripe a banana is, the higher its GI. This typically applies to all fruits that continue to ripen once harvested.
  • Acids in foods. When acid is present in food, it slows the rate at which your body digests that particular food. Slower digestion means slower absorption and a more favorable effect on blood sugar.
  • Individual differences in rate of carbohydrate digestion. Test five people and each will respond differently to the same food. Use the GI as a guide, but monitor the effect carbohydrate foods have on you, especially if you have diabetes.
  • Type of flour (if any) in the product. The more refined white flour in a product, the higher the GI; the more whole-grain flour, the lower the GI.
  • Cooking time. The cooking process makes starch molecules swell and also softens food (the longer the cooking time, the softer the food) making it easier (faster) to digest. GI numbers typically increase with cooking time.
  • • Other ingredients. If a high-GI food is packaged with foods containing protein or fat (such as prepared fettuccine Alfredo), the carbohydrate will have a lower GI effect than it would alone because the fat and protein slow down its digestion. By the same token, foods such as beans (legumes), which have a naturally low GI, can produce a higher GI when canned with sugar and other ingredients, as in the case of baked beans.

Another limitation of the GI is that it requires participants to consume 50 grams of available carbohydrate for comparison purposes. For some foods, that's a reasonable amount to eat, but for others, it's not. For example, watermelon has a GI of 72, which puts it into the high-GI category. Knowing that might lead you to avoid eating watermelon, even though it's a healthy food and a great source of phytochemicals such as lycopene. What the GI doesn't tell you is that it takes a little more than 4 1/2 cups of watermelon to provide the 50 grams of available carbohydrate on which watermelon's GI is calculated. That's nine times the amount in a typical 1/2 cup serving.

When you calculate the glycemic load (GL), however, you get a very different picture. The glycemic load is used in conjunction with the GI. It reflects the amount of available carbohydrate in a typical serving size of a particular food, so it is more grounded in the real world of eating. The GL is calculated using a formula that multiplies the amount of available carbohydrate in a typical serving size by the food's GI and then divides the result by 100.

Let's take the watermelon example from above. We know it has a high GI. Let's see what happens when we calculate its glycemic load. A typical serving size of watermelon is 1/2 cup, the amount of available carbohydrate in it is 5.75, and its GI is 72. The GL for this food is calculated like this: 5.753724100. If you calculate correctly, you get 4.14, which is rounded to get its glycemic load rating of 4. Watermelon doesn't seem like a high-GI food anymore, does it? That's what happens when you use the carbohydrate in a reasonable serving size to determine the effect on blood sugar. Using the GL shows that it is possible to include high-GI foods in meal planning (more on this later). Remember, eliminating individual foods from your diet, especially fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and beans that may have a high GI, means you'll miss out on lots of vitamins, minerals, and fiber. You can find in-depth information on the glycemic index and search for the GI and GL of individual foods at www.glycemicindex.com.

So far, we've discussed the role carbohydrates play in weight gain. Keep reading to learn about how carbohydrates can affect other areas of your health.


Getting Acquainted with GI and GL Values
The following gives both the GI and GL of some sample foods. The foods are organized by their GI ranking. The GL rankings are as follows:

Low GL = 10, Moderate GL = 11-19, and High GL = 20+
(per 50 g of available carbohydrate)

 

 GI

 GL

LOW GI (< 55)

 

 

Low-fat yorgurt with artificial sweetener

 14 

2 

Lentils

 28

5 

Apple

 36 

6

All-Bran cereal

 38

8 

Tomato juice

 38

 4

Spaghetti

 41

 20

Canned baked beans

 48

 7

Orange, raw

 48

 5

Sourdough rye bread

 48

 6

100% stone-ground rye bread

 53

 6

Sweet potato

 54

 17

 

 

 

MODERATE (55 -- 70)

 

 

Brown rice

 55

16 

Oatmeal cookies

 55

 9

Moroccan couscous

 58

 23

Peach, canned in heavy syrup 

 58

 9

Cheese pizza

 60

 16

Sweet corn

 60

 9

Split pea soup 

 60

 16

Raisins

 64

 28

Grapenuts 

 67

 15

Cranberry juice cocktail 

 68

 24

Whole-wheat bread 

 69

 9

 

 

 

HIGH (> 70)

 

 

Toaster pastry 

 70

26 

Skittles 

 70

 32

Wonder, enriched white bread 

 71

 10

Watermelon 

 72

 4

Cherrios 

 74

 15

Long-grain white rice, quick cooking 

 75

 25

French fries 

 76

 22

Russet potato, baked without fat 

 78

 78

Jelly beans 

 80

 22

Pretzels 

 83

 19

French baguette 


Carbohydrates and Disease

Carbohydrate's Role in Disease Prevention and Management

So far, we've been concentrating on how to choose good and better carbohydrates for weight control. But selecting good and better carbs affects many aspects of your health. Choose wisely, and you may avoid the onset of some life-threatening health conditions as well as take control of others you already have.

Complex carbohydrates are the all-stars of disease prevention and disease management. That's because of their high fiber content as well as the abundance of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients they contain. Here's a look at how eating a diet filled with complex carbohydrates can prevent or improve a variety of health conditions and diseases.

Heart disease. The traditional approach to treating or preventing cardiovascular disease (CVD) has long been a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. The connection between fat, especially saturated fat, and heart disease was established years ago. Saturated fat, found in particularly high amounts in red meat and full-fat dairy products, raises LDL cholesterol levels (the "bad" cholesterol). Researchers concluded that if people reduced the overall amount of fat in their diet, the amount of saturated fat would also drop. Since fat has more than twice as many calories as carbohydrate and protein (9 calories per gram for fat compared to 4 calories per gram for carbohydrate or protein), reducing the amount of fat in the diet and increasing the amount of carbohydrate would mean eating fewer calories. Excess body weight is a contributing factor for heart disease, so maintaining a healthy weight works to reduce CVD risk.

Typically, carbohydrate foods are naturally low in fat. When minimally processed, they contain fiber that helps reduce cholesterol levels by removing LDL from the body. Health professionals included carbohydrates in their recommendations for heart-healthy eating. However, people were not always counseled to eat more of the "healthy" carbs and fewer of the "less healthy" carbs and filled up on large portions of fat-free and refined carbohydrates. They may have been taking in less fat but certainly not fewer calories!

To help reduce the risk of heart disease, the American Heart Association (AHA) currently recommends a diet rich in fruits; vegetables; legumes (beans); whole, unrefined, complex carbohydrates; low-fat dairy products; fish; lean meats; and poultry. The AHA also recommends reducing the amount of saturated and hydrogenated (trans) fats in the diet. Nutrition counseling and education recommendations from the American Dietetic Association, the AHA, and other organizations focus on the distinction between heart-healthy fats and the importance of "healthy" carbohydrates.

Gastrointestinal disease. Complex carbohydrates, such as whole fruits and vegetables, beans, and whole grains, are particularly helpful for improving overall gastrointestinal health. These foods are high in fiber, which plays a pivotal role in reducing the incidence of constipation and diverticulosis, a condition in which tiny pouches form inside the colon. Fiber may also reduce the risk of colon, stomach, and gallbladder cancers. But that's not the only benefit of these nutrient-rich foods. Increased intake of intact grains and other fiber-rich, whole, complex carbohydrate foods helps decrease pressure inside the intestinal tract and may help prevent diverticulosis as well as diverticulitis, the painful inflammation of the pouches. Many of these complex carbohydrate foods also pack vitamins and minerals, such as iron, zinc, magnesium, and a host of B vitamins, as well as antioxidants such as vitamins E and C, selenium, and beta carotene. The phytic acid found in whole grains may help reduce cancer risk by decreasing free radicals. Free radicals, molecules formed as a byproduct of various biochemical processes in your body, can damage cells. Reducing the amount of free radicals can in turn reduce the risk of cancer.

Diabetes. It's still unclear whether diabetes can be prevented by eating complex carbohydrates that have a low-GI ranking. One prevailing theory is that long-term intake of lots of high-GI carbohydrates increases the risk of type 2 diabetes. This is thought to result from either insulin resistance (see below) or by exhausting the pancreas as it works to produce constant, high levels of insulin. There is good evidence, however, that a diet filled with complex carbohydrates can help treat and manage diabetes. We've known for quite some time that people with diabetes don't need to stay away from all carbohydrate. The body processes all forms of carbohydrate the same way, turning them into sugar (glucose). It's the speed with which the carbohydrate is processed and its corresponding effect on blood sugar that is important in diabetes management. Since simple, refined carbohydrates raise blood sugar more dramatically than do complex carbohydrates, people with diabetes should eat low-GI carbohydrates rather than refined, high-GI carbs. Eating low-GI foods throughout the day -- at meals and for snacks -- can go a long way toward controlling blood sugar levels.

Insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is a condition that may make it difficult for some people to process simple carbohydrates, especially large portions of them at one time. Overwhelming or flooding the body with large intakes of carbohydrate forces the body to work extra hard to clear the glucose from the blood. In the case of insulin resistance, the body's tissues are not receptive to the message that insulin is there to unlock the cell and let glucose in to do its job. The result is high levels of glucose circulating in the bloodstream for extended periods of time. This causes the pancreas to work harder to crank out more insulin to shuttle all of the extra glucose into cells. Overworked pancreatic cells may eventually wear out and decrease insulin production, which is an early sign of type 2 (or non-insulin-dependent) diabetes. One way to reduce your chances of developing insulin resistance is by eating plenty of low-GI complex carbohydrates and fewer high-GI, refined, simple carbohydrates.

Obesity. You may not think of obesity as a health condition, but being considerably overweight puts you at risk for a number of different health problems. And people who are overweight typically respond differently to carbohydrates than people who are not. A diet of high-GI, refined carbohydrates may have a much more adverse effect on an obese person's health. For example, in the ongoing Nurses' Health Study, established at Brigham and Women's Hospital in 1976 with funding from the National Institutes of Health, the odds of having a heart attack are increased for overweight women who eat lots of simple (easily digested) carbohydrates. Additionally, volunteers following high-carbohydrate, low-fat diets experienced unhealthy changes in levels of HDL (the good cholesterol), triglycerides (a type of fat), blood sugar, and insulin-the changes being most pronounced in overweight, inactive people. People who are lean and active may be better able to handle a high-carbohydrate intake for a number of reasons. First of all, being overweight makes it more difficult for insulin to do its job helping glucose get into the cells to provide energy. Secondly, people who are more active require more fuel for energy and are particularly efficient at burning carbohydrate, which is the body's preferred source. This allows active people to burn excess carbohydrate for energy instead of storing it as fat. Finally, when you have less fat tissue and more muscle, the body is more efficient at processing and digesting food, including carbohydrates. Whole grains, legumes, fruits, and most vegetables are naturally low in fat and contain healthy carbohydrates and significant amounts of fiber, all of which contribute to an overall healthy eating plan. Human studies have produced mixed results in the low-GI/weight-loss arena, but it certainly isn't harmful to employ the GI when making daily food choices. Some people may experience weight loss as a result.

Your body needs fuel to function. Carbohydrates provide that fuel. In the next section, we'll discuss eating the right carbohydrates for exercise.