Health Magazine

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Bern swears by the South Beach diet, and it’s fair to say that she’s following a straightforward weight-loss plan. Still, you have to wonder is the regimen worthwhile? There are hundreds of diet books, and most pack big disappointments alongside their bold promises. Is this one any better?

To answer that question, you first have to get to know the GI. And doing that is worthwhile, no matter what you think about today's hottest diet book.

The index classifies foods according to how much they elevate blood glucose levels. A piece of white bread is the baseline, with an arbitrary value of 100. So oat-bran bread (GI value = 68) raises your blood sugar less than a hamburger bun (87); neither can compare to a French baguette (136), which breaks down even more quickly than white bread.

Experts agree that staying away from foods with high GI numbers (such as cookies, chips, sodas, and sugary cereals) and eating abundant amounts of foods that are relatively low on the scale (like broccoli, cherries, and yogurt) can help you control your weight, prevent diabetes, and reduce your risks of heart disease, stroke, and cancer. But the medical establishment also criticizes many fad diets for relying on the index, because such plans generally ignore crucial complexities in the concept.

Clearly, eating foods with high GI values, such as fiber-stripped processed items loaded with simple carbohydrates, causes blood sugar to rise rapidly. In response, the pancreas pumps out insulin, a hormone that moves sugar out of the blood and into muscle and fat cells, where it can be used for energy. The higher the GI level, the higher the insulin surge. Here's where things get controversial. Agatston says insulin spikes lower your blood sugar so much that you get hungry sooner than you should. In turn, you crave processed foods, those that raise blood sugar the fastest. The result? "We overeat," Agatston claims, "and this leads to more fat, more insulin response, more hunger, and more weight gain-a vicious cycle."

The consequences go beyond the cosmetic. You probably think of insulin as important only to people with diabetes. But roughly one in five Americans has a condition called insulin resistance, or an inability to move sugar from the bloodstream into cells. People who are insulin-resistant make the hormone in excess yet can end up with perilously high blood sugar. The imbalance can lead to type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

According to Agatston, people should eat more foods that are low on the index if they want to lose weight and boost their heart health -- oat-bran bread and spinach, for example, instead of biscuits and French fries. To prevent the wild bursts of hunger brought on by low blood sugar, they should also snack regularly on low-GI foods like peanuts instead of high-GI choices like pretzels.

No nutritionist would argue against oat-bran bread and spinach. But despite Agatston's c laims, many health authorities dispute the idea that high-glycemic foods cause weight gain and insulin resistance. The American Dietetic Association (ADA), an 86-year-old group focused on nutrition and public health, says flatly that eating too many calories, not just foods that provoke a strong insulin response, makes you fat

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