Dr. Arya Sharma blogged about PGX and its benefit of being able to modify the glycemic index of foods on November 26 in his Obesity Notes Blog.
Yesterday, I blogged about the results of the DIOGENES study showing that a moderately high-protein diet, that also has a relatively low glycemic index, may be better for sustaining weight loss.
This post prompted a number of questions regarding the glycemic index (GI) - which most readers may recall refers to the relative speed with which carbohydrates in a given food can be digested and enter the blood stream as glucose.
Thus, high-glycemic index foods (e.g. baked potatoes, white bread, polished rice, corn flakes, sugar-sweetened beverages, etc.) result in a rapid rise in blood glucose levels whereas low-glycemic index foods (e.g.most fruits and vegetables, legumes/pulses, whole grains, meat, eggs, milk, nuts, etc.) take longer to digest and therefore result in a more gradual rise in blood sugar levels.
Clearly, based on yesterday’s post (and several previous studies on the benefits of low-GI diets), reducing the glycemic index of a meal may be beneficial for maintaining weight loss, a strategy that is of course best adopted by choosing low-glycemic-index foods in your diet.
However, we also know that choosing the right foods may not always be possible or practical.
This is where readers may be interested in new data showing that you can also substantially modify the glycemic index of foods (or a meal) by simply adding or taking a fibre supplement.
Thus, a paper by Brand-Miller and colleagues from the University of Sydney, Australia, published last month in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, now shows that adding a viscous fibre supplement (PolyGlycopleX (PGX) - which was co-developed by researchers in Canada), can delay the glycemic response after a meal.
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