Hacker News Reader

Comment by m463 | Hacker News Reader

note that sugar != blood sugar.

For example carbs include fiber, which can stabilize blood sugar. fat can also help.

I listened to the audiobook for "the glucose revolution" and it was pretty educational. glucose spikes are what you want to prevent.

View on HN

Doesn't white rice cause significant glucose spikes though? A huge chunk of the planet eats it in significant portions... ?

The chunk that is famous for skinny-fat people and high Diabetes Type 2.

Yes. I'm diabetic and eating a relatively meal with rice in it (think sushi) absolutely spikes my blood sugar (it's not uncommon for filling sushi meal to have as many carbs as 4 or 5 candy bars)

I'm speaking only to carb content; the discussion of whether it's healthy on a holistic basic is a much larger conversation.

But sushi rice is usually prepared with extra sugar, it's not plain rice.

Depending on the type of white rice, yes. However eating rice with high fat/protein foods can reduce the sharpness of the spike. And rice is rarely eaten alone.

In an otherwise healthy adult, no. In diabetics, maybe.

Your body adjusts its insulin production to match the food you're digesting. Diabetics need to calibrate this manually, which is error prone as there's more variables than just what you ate (stress, sleep, hormone cycles, prior meals...).

The problematic aspect of foods with large amounts of easily digested carbohydrates is that the immediate demands for insulin are higher which might pose a problem in diabetics (unless they are treating hypoglycemia, in which its desired).

> In diabetics, maybe.

Sushi rice causes me (type-1) to spike. Other kinds of rice (jasmine, pilaf, etc) behave more like normal carbohydrates.

The first recipe[0] I found has 4g of added sugar per serving of rice, fwiw. That's probably why.

[0] https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/99211/perfect-sushi-rice/

Not surprising since iirc you wash away parts of the normal starch and then add sugar as a binder.

Your body produces insulin exactly to stimulate absorption of the increased glucose.

Your blood sugar won't stay high if you are healthy, but there is certainly sugar digested from the rice entering the bloodstream.

portions matter

and of course as industrialization, relative food abundance, and sugar sweetened drinks proliferated all over the world obesity did (and does) too

I wonder: if you eat carbs or suger in smaller portions but more often throughout the day, can you "flatten the curve" this way and reduce the spikes. Is this good for you?

Nope, it is impossible to flatten the curve of insulin spike and that is actually quite damaging, you will be releasing insulin the whole day, the hormone that signals energy storing mode which also makes it more difficult to burn it

Then how is eating low-glycemic index food different from eating high-glycemic index food slowly/in a spread out manner?

they aren’t that different in the end, just a measure of digestion

I asked Claude what's going on, and she said that the main difference lies in the fact that low-GI food naturally contains fiber and other stuff that slow digestion, and that merely spreading out the consumption of high-GI food cannot replicate the same effect.

It would be eating smaller portions and less throughout the day. It'll spike anytime you have a meal, however, any five minute activity that cause sweat will significantly drop your blood glucose levels. Eating fiber, then protein, followed by carbs will flatten and slow down the curve.

>through the day

Means the body always has some available.

Or, in other words, it does not get a chance to burn fat.

And eventually the mechanism itself degrades, becoming unable to burn fat.

Keep in mind that our always-available food supply situation is very recent in our species history.

Intermittent fasting is what the human body has evolved to do, and how we can get our health back.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com