The experts used to tell us we should avoid simple carbohydrates, i.e. sugar, and instead eat complex carbohydrates, i.e. starches. Some of them are still saying that, which is unfortunate because scientists now know that this is not the right way to look at it.

Scientists now know that some starches, such as baked potato for example, cause your blood sugar and insulin levels to increase dramatically in much the same way as sugars cause these levels to jump. So they constructed something called the Glycemic Index, which shows how fast and to what degree a given amount of each kind of carbohydrate causes your blood sugar and insulin levels to rise.

In a typical glycemic index, pure glucose is assigned the number 100. All other carbohydrates are assigned lower numbers corresponding to how fast and to what degree they cause your blood sugar to rise in comparison to the way pure glucose causes your blood sugar to rise. A baked russet potato causes your blood sugar to rise about 85% as much as pure glucose, so a baked potato is said to have a glycemic index of 85 on this type of index.

Now more and more diet-book gurus and nutrition journalists are telling people to forget about whether a carbohydrate is simple or complex, and simply judge it by its glycemic index. They tell us the rule we should follow is to simply avoid foods that have a high glycemic index.

This is unfortunate too, though, because the glycemic index only tells you how much a given quantity of the carbohydrate in a given food causes your blood sugar to rise. The glycemic index does not tell you how much carbohydrate is contained in that food. And the quantity of carbohydrate in a given food is an even more important factor in determining how much that food will cause your blood sugar and insulin to rise.

No problem. Another index has more recently been developed by scientists which takes into consideration both factors: to what degree a given quantity of a given carbohydrate causes your blood sugar to rise, and also the quantity of carbohydrate contained in a specific-size portion of that food.

This new index is called the Glycemic Load, and it provides you with extremely important information for weight loss and for many other aspects of health, energy, appearance, and emotional well-being.

Dr. Jennie Brand-Miller at the University of Sydney and some of her colleagues published an extensive list showing both the glycemic index and the glycemic load of 750 foods in the July 2002 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, pages 5-56. It's a tedious list to consult, though, because it contains many foods and brands from other parts of the world, which most Americans are not concerned about.

More and more diet books, including several by Dr. Jenny Brand-Miller, are including more usable glycemic indexes these days, so you shouldn't have much trouble finding one.

The reason it is so important for you to have this information is because when food causes your blood sugar to rise too much, the increased blood sugar causes your insulin levels to rise, and that causes weight gain, especially around the waist, and all sorts of other health, appearance, and emotional problems as well.

Insulin is an extremely important endocrine hormone that has a powerful effect on many aspects of health, appearance, and feelings of well-being.

When insulin levels are elevated, the levels of many other hormones and other types of chemical messengers in your body change as well. And this can lead to all sorts of trouble.

Recent scientific studies have revealed a dramatic relationship between high-glycemic foods, obesity, and several major illnesses.