Ever wondered why despite carefully curating a diet for your needs and following it diligently, you’re still nowhere near your goal weight and nowhere near healthy? Answer this question then. Among ice cream and a watermelon, which one more likely to raise your blood sugar level? If an Israeli study is to believe, the answer varies from one person to another. And you thought the answer was obviously ice-cream because it contains more sugar. If only healthy food were as simple as that!
Different people have different microbiomes present in the body and they influence our response to food. So, the same food can have different effects on the body.
Insulin carries glucose from the liver to our blood which helps in creating energy. People who involve themselves in physical energy have lower sugar levels as compared to those who prefer a sedentary lifestyle.
Stress makes our body produce adrenaline and cortisol which stimulates the increase of sugar levels in the blood.
When we eat foods that are not good for us, the level of sugar in our blood increases which makes the pancreas produce more insulin. The cells react to that, conserve glucose in the form of glycogen and fat which leads to both a quick drop of sugar levels in blood and hunger.
Glycemic index (GI), is used to rank foods based on how they affect blood sugar levels and is a factor used by doctors and nutritionists to develop healthy diets. The study found that the GI of any given food is not a set value, but depends on the individual. For all participants, they collected data through health questionnaires, body measurements, blood tests, glucose monitoring, stool samples, and a mobile-app used to report lifestyle and food intake.
This research also proved that general recommendations on healthy diets can be ineffective for an individual. This is why knowing which foods are good for you and which are not can be a reliable way of controlling sugar levels in order to prevent these diseases.
