load essentially takes into account how much sugar a typical
serving size of a given food will release into your blood,
while insulin AUC is the total amount of insulin a food (or
meal) will stimulate. The total impact of a meal on your
blood sugar (and your liver’s ability to dispose of it) may
matter more than how high or how quickly the blood
glucose level rises after a single food item. Some research
even suggests that fast-releasing carbs—especially in the
absence of fat—can be dealt with more quickly by the body,
with a short, quick insulin spike, rather than by having
elevated insulin for several hours after a mixed meal of, say,
a baked potato with butter.
WHAT MAKES A GOOD CARB GO BAD?
The low-carb vs. low-fat debate has been raging in the
health sphere for the last decade or so. Zealots on both sides
claim a monopoly on the truth, but the truth is that both
sides often throw out the evidence that doesn’t fit their
worldview. There are entire populations that thrive on high-
carb, low-fat diets (like the Okinawans of Japan), and those
that thrive on high-fat, lower-carb diets (like the Masai of
Africa). How do we reconcile the two? Is genetic carb
tolerance enough to explain it? A good scientific model of
our biology should be able to explain why both can be
healthy. What we do know is that when indigenous
populations around the globe are exposed to a “Western”
diet, disease soon follows.
So what makes a high-carb diet suddenly toxic? In