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I don't read many of these types of studies, but is their control for "physical activity" really controlling for exercise because it seems laughable. They broke participants into two physical activity groups: less than once a month and more than once a month.
This seems like an important distinction because high GL foods, according to the paper, are high GI foods with high carbohydrate content. Some of the biggest consumers of carbohydrates are athletes. I am a very mediocre runner and run anywhere from 1 to 5 times a week. I put on weight and lose muscle when I'm running only once a week. The exercise cutoff in the statistical analysis seems like it would include a substantial number of sedentary people in the physical activity positive group.
Glycemic Index is the speed at which your blood sugar will rise. Glycemic Load is normally defined as the total amount your blood sugar will rise when eating a food.
So it is actually possible to have lower Glycemic Index foods with a higher than normal Glycemic load if they are low index but high carbs. It is also possible to have high GI foods that are extremely low on the GL. (Watermelon is the main example of that. The sugars in it convert insanely fast (GI 80) but there are so few of them that it's GL is 5.)
So this result is pretty counter intuitive. I am not sure what mechanism could result in this. I don't know that the physical activity will matter much for what they are specifically testing for, but it is hard to imagine a diet that has overall high blood sugar effects having a lower overall risk of cancer.
I would think there has to be a more specific effect contained within this result than just the GI and GL. Like some food that only exists in one group or the other is changing something. I don't know though.
The correlation with high glycemic load was smaller but this still seems counterintuitive unless there is another risk factor that the carbs are displacing. For example, high GI foods and meat could increase cancer risk but eating more carbs decreases meat consumption so it has an overall beneficial effect.
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I don't read many of these types of studies, but is their control for "physical activity" really controlling for exercise because it seems laughable. They broke participants into two physical activity groups: less than once a month and more than once a month.
This seems like an important distinction because high GL foods, according to the paper, are high GI foods with high carbohydrate content. Some of the biggest consumers of carbohydrates are athletes. I am a very mediocre runner and run anywhere from 1 to 5 times a week. I put on weight and lose muscle when I'm running only once a week. The exercise cutoff in the statistical analysis seems like it would include a substantial number of sedentary people in the physical activity positive group.
Glycemic Index is the speed at which your blood sugar will rise. Glycemic Load is normally defined as the total amount your blood sugar will rise when eating a food.
So it is actually possible to have lower Glycemic Index foods with a higher than normal Glycemic load if they are low index but high carbs. It is also possible to have high GI foods that are extremely low on the GL. (Watermelon is the main example of that. The sugars in it convert insanely fast (GI 80) but there are so few of them that it's GL is 5.)
So this result is pretty counter intuitive. I am not sure what mechanism could result in this. I don't know that the physical activity will matter much for what they are specifically testing for, but it is hard to imagine a diet that has overall high blood sugar effects having a lower overall risk of cancer.
I would think there has to be a more specific effect contained within this result than just the GI and GL. Like some food that only exists in one group or the other is changing something. I don't know though.
The correlation with high glycemic load was smaller but this still seems counterintuitive unless there is another risk factor that the carbs are displacing. For example, high GI foods and meat could increase cancer risk but eating more carbs decreases meat consumption so it has an overall beneficial effect.
Please share what foods this includes for us here in the thread :)
It just means foods that spike your blood sugar so think sugary junk or processed carbs.
ie: bread, soda, candy, chips