Glycemic load: eating to control diabetes

The glycemic load helps you figure out what foods are good for your glucose level and how they impact your blood sugar. Nuts are great snacks and these studies address specifically how they help.

Managing your diabetes starts with a balanced diet to control your carbs and sugar intake. While the glycemic index has proven to be a useful tool in determining problematic carbs in foods, it has a flaw: It doesn't account for how much carb is in the food.

• That means that foods that have a small amount of easily digested sugar but are otherwise healthy are being inappropriately categorized as bad for diabetes.
• So scientists came up with the glycemic load, which measures not just the quality of carbs in a food, but also the quantity.
• It's a more accurate way to gauge whether eating that food will have a small or large impact on blood sugar.

Is it useful? You bet. When scientists looked at the glycemic load of typical diets in different populations, they found that the higher the GL, the greater the incidence of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

• In a recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health, women were twice as likely to develop heart disease over 10 years if they ate more sugar-boosting foods.
• And the converse is also true; the lower the GL of your diet, the more likely you are to keep your weight under control and stay free of chronic disease.

Nuts can help you reduce your glycemic load.

• They contain lots of protein and the type of fat that is healthy for your body. And yes, while they are high in calories, they make you feel full, contributing to less caloric intake overall.
• Just eat in moderation; a healthy snack of almonds is about 15 to 20 nuts.

Another good nut to choose? Pistachios. In a 2011 University of Toronto study, pistachios lowered levels of A1C, the marker for long-term glucose control.

• Researchers say that several studies on pistachios show that they can decrease blood glucose levels after carbohydrate-rich meals. Limit portions to a small handful of nuts, once a day.