This is a

Monika Reinagel, the nutrition diva,

here with your quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous.

This week, I'm talking about some new research on the glycemic index.

It might be time to re-evaluate just how important the glycemic index really is.

You know, I started my career in nutrition. is.

You know, I started my career in nutrition at about the same time as people started talking about the

glycemic index. At the time, it was a fairly radical new idea that carbohydrate-containing foods could be described

according to how fast your blood sugar rises after you eat them.

Low glycemic carbs, sometimes referred to as slow carbs, are foods that cause a relatively

low or slow increase in blood sugar after you eat them.

Low glycemic carbs include foods like non-starchy vegetables, beans, legumes, and whole grains.

High glycemic or fast carbs, which include things like soda, fruit juice, refined grains, and sweets do just the opposite.

Foods that cause a quick rise in blood sugar, it was theorized, would lead to reduced insulin sensitivity, increased fat storage, and an elevated risk of type 2 diabetes, and obesity.

Since then, the idea that we should limit high glycemic foods has become completely mainstream,

endorsed by everyone from the Harvard School of Public Health to the nutrition diva herself.

But as the years have rolled on, research on the benefits of low glycemic diets has been surprisingly mixed.

Did we all jump on the glycemic bandwagon too quickly?

Does glycemic index not matter as much as we thought? A new study adds an interesting new twist to this

carbohydrate conversation, one that may help explain why low glycemic diets

don't always produce the kinds of results we think they should.

In this study, researchers demonstrated that if you're limiting the total amount of

...