General Health
High GI diet raises risk of fatty liver disease
By David Liu
Sep 22, 2007 - 8:23:08 PM

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SATURDAY September 22, 2007 (Foodconsumer.org) -- A study published in the September issue of the journal Obesity suggests that eating a high Glycemic Index (GI) diet may increase risk of fatty liver disease in humans.

Glycemic Index is a measure of how fast a food releases glucose from starch.   The higher the GI, the faster the food releases glucose. Fast releasing of sugars from foods can cause burden on the body and trigger certain adverse events.

Low GI foods include those particularly with high fiber such as vegetables, fruits, beans and whole grain products while high GI foods are refined products without much fiber such as white bread, white rice, most prepared breakfast cereals and sugars.

In the study, Dr. David Ludwig and colleagues at Children's Hospital Boston fed mice either a diet with high GI foods or a diet with low GI foods.   Both types of diets contained the same amounts of calories, protein, fat and carbohydrates.

After six months of diet intervention, both groups of mice gained the same weight. But one difference is that the mice on the high GI diet had twice the amount of fat in their bodies, blood and livers than those on the low GI diet.

An early Italian study linked high GI diet with fatty liver, but that study was not well controlled.   The results of the current study add to the evidence suggesting that high GI food is a risk factor for fatty liver.

Ludwig and team are planning to do a trial to determine if changing the diet can reverse fatty liver in overweight children. One conventional treatment of the condition is to use a low-fat diet.