Counterfeit energy exposed by the GI

photo courtesy of Amazon

Breaking news concerning newly discovered shortcomings of popular energy drinks? Not really because the shortcomings of “energy drinks” have been known for quite a while (although you’d never know it judging by their sales figures). In the next few moments you will learn how energy drinks can actually cause a decrease in energy and contribute to weight gain by getting to know the GI aka glycemic index.

Do you remember the Dewey Decimal System? Thanks to the internet I pretty much don't at all, save for the name because it has a great ring to it. In fact, I’d like to learn it simply due its catchy name. Maybe I could organize my cd's with it? It has to be better than my current system whose main feature just makes anything I want to play at that moment, disappear.

The glycemic index (GI) sounds a lot less exciting than the "D.D.S" but in all fairness it is far more relevant to your immediate health and wellness endeavors. Basically, the GI ranks various foods using their impact on blood glucose levels, assigning them a number. For example, a white bagel is a 72 and oatmeal is a 49 on the glycemic index. Essentially what this indicates is how quickly a particular food will be absorbed by the body and converted to sugar (glucose). The higher the number, the more rapidly it is absorbed and vice versa. A white bagel is absorbed faster and thus has a "higher GI" than oatmeal.

So you ask me, “Hey Mr. Acronym, how do these numbers relate to energy?” Foods that are quickly absorbed by the body (high GI) tend to cause an "over reaction" from the blood sugar police. The blood sugar police, code name (and actual name) "insulin," keeps the body safe from high blood sugar (and in rare cases, nun chucks). One of insulin's main jobs is to regulate and store excess blood sugar as fat. It can store only a limited amount (~1500 calories worth) of sugar as glycogen in the muscles and liver. When there is a surplus of sugar in the blood, as is often the case when high GI foods are eaten, insulin is released by the body to manage the excess calories.

Unless you are exercising the higher the food is on the GI the more insulin is released and the faster its "energy" or sugar is removed from the blood and stored as fat.

To illustrate this, let's follow the journey of a typical high GI "energy drink" (any brand with "sugar" is high GI). You're at work and Bob from accounting is well into his fourth pointless story of the day and completely ignoring the fact that at this point, you aren't even nodding your head anymore. Suddenly you remember that energy drink in your drawer. Within 5 minutes you've downed a florescent pink and green can with a picture of an agro gorilla that reads "Extreme Liquid High Five Energy." Soon you start to feel pretty good as your body’s physiology responds to the choreography induced by 40 grams worth of high fructose corn syrup and 200mg of caffeine. You tell Bob you have to get back to work and all is well for the next hour or so.

Bingo Bango sugar in the gas tank!

As you are hastily making up time, the large dose of sugar is being arrested by your insulin task force. As stated before, with high GI foods like an energy drink, the body tends to over-react and release more insulin than is necessary to cope with the foods that were just consumed. Insulin continues to do its job until your blood sugar is lower than before you danced with “the gorilla.” At this point you have hypoglycemia or low blood sugar which contributes to feelings of fatigue and your body sends signals of hunger in an effort to normalize blood sugar levels. Now you’re rummaging around the bottom of your desk drawers and dreading having to panhandle 2 dimes from Bob so you can calm that frantic scream from within, pleading for those nacho cheese Bugles that have been in the vending machine since George Bush, no W, was in office.

The moral of the story: when learning the D.D.S. (or anything else for that matter), fuel your body and your brain with foods that will sustain your energy (low to moderate GI) or you’ll be in a ravenous fog before you reach the Social Sciences.