Aziz Alfred
Bureau of Nutritional Sciences, Nutrition Research Division, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch, Health Canada, 251 Sir Frederick Banting Driveway, AL 2203E, Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1A 0K9.
J AOAC Int. 2009 May-Jun;92(3):879-87.
The glycemic index (GI) is an experimental system that classifies carbohydrates (CHO) and CHO-containing foods according to their blood glucose-raising potential. It is based on the glycemic response following the ingestion of a test food containing a defined amount of available CHO relative to that of an equi-carbohydrate portion of either white bread or glucose. The concept has been extended to mixed meals and whole diets where the GI of the meal/diet is expressed as the weighted average of the GI of each food, based on the percentage of the total mealldiet CHO provided by each food. Over the last few decades, a substantial number of epidemiological and interventional studies have reported beneficial associationsleffects of lower GI diets across a wide spectrum of pathophysiological conditions, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and certain forms of cancer. This has prompted proponents of the GI to recommend its use for dietary planning and labeling purposes. However, the currently recommended GI methodology is not well standardized and has several flaws, which brings into question the strength of evidence attributed to the health effects of low-GI diets. This review focuses exclusively on the methodological aspects of the GI, how they might impact the interpretation of data related to the purported health benefits of low GI diets, and the considerations for the use of the GI in food labeling. In addition, alternative systems for classifying the glycemic effects of CHO-containing foods are briefly discussed.
血糖生成指数（GI）是一种实验系统，它根据碳水化合物（CHO）及含CHO食物升高血糖的潜力对其进行分类。它基于摄入含有一定量可利用CHO的测试食物后相对于白面包或葡萄糖等碳水化合物含量相等部分的血糖反应。这一概念已扩展到混合餐和整体饮食，其中餐食/饮食的GI表示为每种食物GI的加权平均值，基于每种食物在总餐食/饮食CHO中所占的百分比。在过去几十年中，大量的流行病学和干预性研究报告了低GI饮食在广泛的病理生理状况（包括糖尿病、心血管疾病、肥胖症和某些癌症）中具有有益的关联/效果。这促使GI的支持者建议将其用于饮食规划和标签目的。然而，目前推荐的GI方法没有得到很好的标准化，存在几个缺陷，这使得低GI饮食对健康影响的证据强度受到质疑。本综述专门关注GI的方法学方面，它们如何可能影响与低GI饮食所谓健康益处相关数据的解释，以及在食品标签中使用GI的注意事项。此外，还简要讨论了对含CHO食物血糖效应进行分类的替代系统。
