Resource "Wired to Eat" - The Best Dietary Guide for ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia?

[Remy]

Does the author make recommendations for any other kinds of measurements besides blood glucose? Also, does he account for the varying glucose density in different carbohydrate foods? For example, 50g of potato is nearly 50g of glucose once the starch is broken down, but 50g of table sugar (sucrose) is only about half glucose and half fructose (which is more likely to show up as higher triglycerides).

The author doesn’t but people have certainly measured all sorts of things, typically ketones and HR after eating.

I don’t know what “glucose density” means. It’s not s term I’ve ever heard and nothing comes up on google.

But the idea is that you eat a standard amount so that you can repeat the experiment if necessary. After all, you really just want to know the impact of that food on your blood sugar to know your carb tolerance and have it be a replicable measure before you change your diet on one instance.

 

[TJ_Fitz]

The author doesn’t but people have certainly measured all sorts of things, typically ketones and HR after eating.

I don’t know what “glucose density” means. It’s not a term I’ve ever heard and nothing comes up on google.

But the idea is that you eat a standard amount so that you can repeat the experiment if necessary. After all, you really just want to know the impact of that food on your blood sugar to know your carb tolerance and have it be a replicable measure before you change your diet on one instance.

I don't know if "glucose density" is a real medical term, but it seemed like a good way to describe the concept. I should have said "glycemic index", as that is a well-known term, but for some reason I didn't remember that at the time of my post! If someone decides to perform this experiment, it would be best to somehow index the food in question against its glycemic index, to see if the ensuing blood sugar increase is typical, high, or low for that particular food. One could look into glycemic load to get an idea of what magnitude of increase should be expected.

The point I'm getting at is that variations in blood sugar increases after eating different types of carbohydrate foods doesn't necessarily give an indicator of which foods are better for a particular person, because the glycemic index or load of the foods in question vary, and that creates a confounding variable which needs to be controlled for the results of the experiment to be interpreted correctly.

 

[Remy]

I don't know if "glucose density" is a real medical term, but it seemed like a good way to describe the concept. I should have said "glycemic index", as that is a well-known term, but for some reason I didn't remember that at the time of my post! If someone decides to perform this experiment, it would be best to somehow index the food in question against its glycemic index, to see if the ensuing blood sugar increase is typical, high, or low for that particular food. One could look into glycemic load to get an idea of what magnitude of increase should be expected.

The point I'm getting at is that variations in blood sugar increases after eating different types of carbohydrate foods doesn't necessarily give an indicator of which foods are better for a particular person, because the glycemic index or load of the foods in question vary, and that creates a confounding variable which needs to be controlled for the results of the experiment to be interpreted correctly.

Ah, I see.

Glycemic load doesn't really matter in this test because it is simply to assess your reaction to any particular food in a replicable manner. I imagine most of us will not have a great response to any high glycemic load food, but you never know. I learned, for example, that rice is worse for me than potatoes which is useful information for me considering my love of the French fry!

 

[TJ_Fitz]

Ah, I see.

Glycemic load doesn't really matter in this test because it is simply to assess your reaction to any particular food in a replicable manner. I imagine most of us will not have a great response to any high glycemic load food, but you never know. I learned, for example, that rice is worse for me than potatoes which is useful information for me considering my love of the French fry!

If you use the measurements to compare how your reaction to a certain food changes over time, then I agree. (I do love french fries myself!)

But if you're using them to compare different foods, then the differing glycemic loads of different foods means each food has a different baseline amount of blood sugar increase, which is completely independent of differences in individual response to those foods. You're comparing apples to oranges, if you'll excuse the pun.

For example, from http://www.glycemicindex.com/foodSearch.php, you can search for "rice" and "fries" and find these two examples:

Long Grain rice, white, Golden Crown brand​

French fries, baked 15 min (OreIda Golden Fries, H.J. Heinz Co, Pittsburgh, PA, USA)​

150g of the rice has a glycemic load of 30, while 150g of the french fries has a glycemic load of 21 (and it would be lower if they were deep-fried ), so you would expect the fries to increase everyone's blood sugar by a lesser amount than the rice.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to calculate an expected amount of blood sugar increase from a certain glycemic load, so I don't know how to apply the data in a concrete way, but one could simply avoid foods with a higher GL and prefer those with a lower GL, without having do do all the experimenting. If you were able to control for differing GLs, then you could make a meaningful comparison of them based on blood sugar increase.

 

[Remy]

If you use the measurements to compare how your reaction to a certain food changes over time, then I agree. (I do love french fries myself!)

But if you're using them to compare different foods, then the differing glycemic loads of different foods means each food has a different baseline amount of blood sugar increase, which is completely independent of differences in individual response to those foods. You're comparing apples to oranges, if you'll excuse the pun.

For example, from http://www.glycemicindex.com/foodSearch.php, you can search for "rice" and "fries" and find these two examples:

Long Grain rice, white, Golden Crown brand
French fries, baked 15 min (OreIda Golden Fries, H.J. Heinz Co, Pittsburgh, PA, USA)​

150g of the rice has a glycemic load of 30, while 150g of the french fries has a glycemic load of 21 (and it would be lower if they were deep-fried ), so you would expect the fries to increase everyone's blood sugar by a lesser amount than the rice.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to calculate an expected amount of blood sugar increase from a certain glycemic load, so I don't know how to apply the data in a concrete way, but one could simply avoid foods with a higher GL and prefer those with a lower GL, without having do do all the experimenting. If you were able to control for differing GLs, then you could make a meaningful comparison of them based on blood sugar increase.

The point of the test is to determine your own personal tolerance to varying carbohydrate sources. Various carb sources, by definition, will have different glycemic load. But it doesn’t matter. All that matters is what happens to your blood sugar after consuming a set portion of said food. It doesn’t matter if it’s high glycemic load food or not if your post prandial reading is 140+ for many hours. The set amount is just to make the experiment replicable.

 

[TJ_Fitz]

I've got the book in front of me right now, opened to page 202. It seems that he does address my concerns. He give varying amounts of different carb foods to try which add up to an 50g of effective carbohydrates. For example, you can test 180g of cooked white rice, 275g cooked quinoa, or 430g of cooked lentils, to get 50g of carbs.