Background and Aims

Despite there is a broad discussion concerning the importance of glycemic index and glycemic load in diabetes treatment, there is no clear evidence of how glycemic index affects postprandial glycemic response (PPGR). The aim of the study is to evaluate this relation in gestational diabetes patients.

Methods

The glycemic index was assigned to every item in the database, which patients used to record data on meals with a mobile app developed for the study. The GI values were sourced from University of Sydney’s database. The CGM and meal data were collected during a week in free living conditions for patients with gestational diabetes and in healthy pregnant women.

Results

The information on 2054 food intakes and postprandial blood glucose curves from 125 participants were collected. The Pearson correlation between amount of carbohydrates and glycemic load with the following PPGR characteristics for all collected data was: incremental area under the curve 120 minutes after the meal r=0.430 and r=0.418, the rise of blood glucose level from meal start to peak value r=0.420 and r=0.418, peak blood glucose value r=0.342 and r=0.336 respectively. P-value for all estimations was below 0.001.

Conclusions

Current study has shown no evidence of better correlation between glycemic load and PPGR characteristics in comparison to the amount of carbohydrates in a meal when used in remote health monitoring. Neither meal carbohydrates, nor glycemic load alone cannot be used effectively for PPGR prediction, while there are many other factors necessary to consider.

The study was funded by Russian Science Foundation (project №18-75-10042).