Home > Media > Books > Thomas M. S. Wolever M.D.,, Stephen Colagiuri M.D., Kaye M. Foster-Powell, Jennie Brand-Miller Ph.D. - The New Glucose Revolution: The Authoritative Guide to the Glycemic Index - the Dietary Solution for Lifelong Health
Thomas M. S. Wolever M.D.,, Stephen Colagiuri M.D., Kaye M. Foster-Powell, Jennie Brand-Miller Ph.D. - The New Glucose Revolution: The Authoritative Guide to the Glycemic Index - the Dietary Solution for Lifelong Health
gamblin_man's Full Review: Thomas M. S. Wolever M.D.,, Stephen Colagiuri M.D....
The New Glucose Revolution is a book about sugar. The listed authors are all medical people or scientists who have undertaken in depth studies of sugar and its effect on human health. This is an update of an earlier work (which I haven’t seen). It is written by people mostly living and studying outside the US, Australia and Canada to be specific. This edition, however, is written for those of who live and eat in the good old USA.
Jennie Brand-Miller, PhD, the first author listed, is a professor of human nutrition at the University of Sydney. Her work currently focuses on all aspects of the role of carbohydrates in human nutrition. She leads a team of twelve in this endeavor.
Thomas M. S. Wolever. M.D., PhD, is a professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto and part of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at St. Michael’s Hospital.
Kaye Foster-Powell, M. Nutritionist, is a dietician with the Wentworth Area Diabetes Services in New South Wales.
Stephen Colagiuri, M.D., is Director of the Diabetes Center and head of the Department of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Diabetes at the Prince of Wales Hospital in New South Wales.
Also listed as contributing are Lisa Lintner as the author of the book’s recipes and Johanna Burani, M.S, R.D., C.D.E, as adaptor of the book for North American readers.
The author list is a strong endorsement of the scientific, rather than folklore, nature of this book. It shows in the great detail and offers of proof that abound throughout the book. It may also contribute to the difficulty I had absorbing the material. It’s not that the language is obtuse or the ideas too grandiose. It is, rather, that there is so much crammed within the 345 pages that it tends to overwhelm the senses.
To alleviate this overload somewhat, the book is divided into four parts: What is the Glycemic Index?; Your Guide to Low GI Eating; The Glycemic Index and You; and The Glycemic Index Tables. To help you determine if this is the book you want to tackle, I will try to briefly describe what is covered in each of the parts of this book.
What is the Glycemic Index?
The four chapters in this part cover the role of carbohydrates in diet. It begins with a historical picture of our diets and how we have come to where we are today. It talks about the refining of grains and other foods to make the starches more readily absorbed by our systems. It explains the role of glucose, also called blood sugar in our body’s nutrition and the impact of too high or too low levels of blood sugar on our bodies.
In this part we learn about good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates and how which are which is determined. A level of blood glucose must be maintained in the blood stream for routine life functions. When the level rises, after eating and during digestion, a small rise is good. A large rise is bad. Eventually sugar overload causes health problems. These are presaged by a high blood glucose level all or most of the time. The most obvious complication is Type II Diabetes, but there are others as well.
About ten years ago, scientists developed a method to determine how carbohydrates impacted the blood sugar level. This measure is called the Glycemic Index. Good carbs raise the level only a little. Bad carbs raise the level a lot. The Index is derived as a number with table sugar as a reference at 100. Numbers close to zero, actually below 54 are considered good and those above that number are considered bad. How this testing is done and what the results mean to human health is the fodder for this part.
Your Guide to Low GI Eating
This is the “how-to” part of the book. Here is the heart of what to do to achieve a low GI diet without destroying the balanced nutrition so essential to good health. The danger of fats is stressed as the value of low fat foods and foods with good instead of bad fats. The need to eat lots of carbohydrates, but good ones, is stressed also. There is a chapter on cooking with sample meal plans and a chapter of recipes. These recipes range from simple to complex and will provide a good variety for all meals and even snacks.
The ubiquitous food pyramid shows up here, but modified to reflect the need for good carbs and good fats. In the recipes section Buttermilk Pancakes with Glazed Fruit is a winner for breakfast. Minestrone Soup makes a delightful lunch and we like Pork and Noodle Stir-fry as a main meal. All of these are low GI recipes.
The Glycemic Index and You
I read this part straight through and I don’t recommend doing it that way. Each chapter in this part is a different look at how carbs affect your health and well being in a different way. I would suggest reading the first part and, if you are in a hurry to try using the diet portion, reading the second part. Take a breather and then look at each chapter in the third part to see which most interests you. Read it and let it sink in before going to another chapter. To give you a taste of what the third part is all about, the chapter titles are pretty self explanatory.
Weight Control
Diabetes
Hypoglycemia
Heart Health
Children
Peak Sports Performance
Each chapter looks at the role of your blood glucose in a different way. I found reading them straight through left me with seemingly conflicting information. When I went back through each chapter, giving my mind time to absorb and catalogue the material, it was much more useful.
The Glycemic Index Tables
As the title of this part indicates, this part is many pages of tables of foods. There are two sets of tables, each presenting the information in a different way. I find them to be confusing and have taken much time trying to determine how best to use these tables.
The first set of tables is called condensed tables and present foods in alphabetic order. Remembering that only carbohydrates can raise the blood glucose level, I questioned why foods with no carbohydrates were included. The explanation is that it came due to requests from users of earlier tables. This table is pretty easy to use if you guess right as to how the food you are interested is listed. Should you look under raw cabbage or cabbage, raw? The answer seems to vary in no logical way.
The second table is a comprehensive list of all foods that have been tested for their GI values, grouped by food type. This grouping seems to be easier for me to use. The problem with this table is that foods are listed very specifically, often by brand name. Since most of the GI testing has occurred in other countries like Canada and Australia, many of the brands are not to be found in the USA. Since the descriptions in the first part of the book emphasize the variability of GI by things like brand and cooking time, it seems to me that I don’t know whether a food I pick in the US that seems similar is indeed a time bomb instead of a healthy choice.
My Overall Impression
This book is a very useful, in-depth, coverage of a topic not being touted yet by the US medical profession in general. It has good scientific backing and could be used as a lifestyle change for those who have genetic predisposition to poor response to high GI foods. It takes time to read and understand the material but the actual implementation of a low GI diet is quite simple, easy to manage even when eating out, and an eating habit that can be handled for a lifetime.
We owe the authors and others who are studying this new glucose revolution a vote of gratitude.
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- A New York Times best-seller: The New Glucose Revolution is a New York Times best-seller, has sold 600,000+ copies of our Marlowe editions, and has ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
Diets - General Health & Fitness - The New York Times bestseller, by the world s leading authorities on the glycemic index, now completely revised and...More at Barnes and Noble
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