Energy balance
Short-term feeding studies with fixed energy intake cannot refute the long-term health benefits of a low-glycemic-index (GI) diet because they fail to capture weight-mediated effects and long-term disease progression.
Do not abandon whole grains and low-glycemic foods based on short-term diet studies that force participants to eat the same number of calories. In the real world, low-GI foods often help with satiety and weight management, which are key to preventing diabetes and heart disease. Focus on long-term dietary patterns rich in fiber and whole grains rather than isolated short-term metabolic markers.
The main limitation of the feeding study by Sacks et al. is its short duration... If the glycemic index influences body weight... extrapolation of the feeding study with a fixed energy intake to a more naturalistic setting would be problematic.
Why this rating
This is a perspective piece by leading experts synthesizing multiple lines of evidence (cohort, trial, mechanistic), but it does not present new primary data.
Source
The glycemic index: Reports of its demise have been exaggerated
David S. Ludwig et al. · Obesity · 2015
DOI 10.1002/oby.21125
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