Fruits for patients with Diabetes

Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load:

Glycemic Index (GI) is a system of ranking foods based on their effect on increasing blood sugar as compared to a standard like pure glucose. In this system glucose ranks highest i.e. 100, while a food that does not contain sugar ranks lowest i.e. 0. Most food items fall somewhere in between these values. Foods with low glycemic Index help in controlling diabetes and increase the body's sensitivity to insulin. They provide energy slowly over a period of time, so less hunger is experienced. Selecting foods by their glycemic index is good, but you need to consider the nutritive value of the food as well. Ice-creams for example have low glycemic index, if one where to go just by glycemic index!!. Glycemic index charts often give only one value per food, but variations are possible due to variety, ripeness, cooking methods, processing, and the length of storage. The glycemic response is different from one person to another, and even in the same person can vary from day to day or time of the day.

Despite these limitations glycemic index gives us a useful guide as to to foods/fruits to be restricted by a person with diabetes.

Glycemic Load

Glycemic Load is a newer index. It is being considered as a better index than Glycemic Index. Glycemic Load (GL) tells us the density of carbohydrates in the foods. A food item having a high GI might have a low GL. For example, carrots score 47 on the glycemic index chart but