Ever eat a big bowl of delicious ice cream and about an hour later feel like you want to curl up and take a nap?

Most of us have so you are familiar with the high glycemic rollercoaster.

When you eat carbohydrates, your body breaks them down into glucose, a basic fuel for energising the cells of your body. Glucose is dumped into its main distribution system, your bloodstream, for delivery to your cells.

One of the automated systems in your body is the control of blood sugar levels. The body likes them maintained in a very narrow range. When glucose is dumped into your system, the body determines if this has caused blood sugar levels to rise above a certain threshold. If it has, the pancreas releases insulin into your blood.

The Effect of High Glycemic Carbs

The glycemic index [GI] is a scale measuring of the rate carbohydrates release glucose into your bloodstream. A carb with a high GI score releases glucose quickly; a low GI score releases it slowly.

Low and High Glycemic Carbs

If you have dumped high GI carbs into your body, the pancreas will dump a significant load of insulin into your blood. This drives down your blood sugar levels, but often below the normal range desired by your body. When this happens, you become hypoglycemic — you feel tired, brain foggy, weak.

The ‘cure’ for hypoglycemia is to raise your blood sugar levels by eating more carbs. If they are high GI carbs, this again results in elevated blood sugar levels — hyperglycemia, which triggers the release of more insulin.

This yoyo effect continues — the high glycemic rollercoaster.

And this isn’t a rollercoaster of the amusement park variety. It can have disastrous effects on your body. If this becomes your dietary habit, this constant yo-yoing effect messes with the insulin receptors in your cell membranes, creating a state known as insulin resistance, the precursor to type II diabetes.

This is why carbs have received a bad rap over the past several years. Not all carbs are created equal. The anti-ager needs to easily distinguish between the low and the high GI carbs.