The relationship between glycemic response, digestibility, and factors influencing the dietary habits of diabetics.

A significant relationship was found between the rate of release of the sugars; glucose, maltose, and maltotriose from amylitic digestion of 10 foods tested in vitro (expressed as the digestibility index) and the blood glucose response to 50-g carbohydrate portions of the same foods eaten by diabetics (expressed as the glycemic index), (r = 0.815, n = 10, p greater than 0.01). The glycemic index related to both the palatability of the foods (r = 0.731, p less than 0.05) and their frequency of use (r = 0.698, p less than 0.05). However, in this group of motivated diabetics food use was not related directly to palatability, but rather to health belief (r = 0.689, p less than 0.05). The results suggest that carbohydrate foods of potential use to the diabetic may be identified by their in vitro digestion characteristics but to a large extent their acceptance will depend on health belief and possibly ease of preparation.