Reducing GI does not boost effects of low-calorie diet

A low-glycaemic index diet may not be any help for obese people trying to lose weight, contrary to growing popular belief, suggests a new study out of the US.

Researchers from the University of Minnesota tested whether reducing the glycaemic index of a diet already low in calories would have any further benefit for a group of obese adults.
But although the new trial confirmed the benefit of lowering glycaemic index on insulin sensitivity, it did not impact the subjects' weight, they write in this month's issue of the Journal of Nutrition (135:2387-91).

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I am not surprised with this study since it compares the two diets with an equal caloric intake. What readers may be misled to think is that a low-glycemic diet is no better than a high-glycemic one in trying to lose weight. My own experience is that a low-glycemic intake helped me lose 20kgs in 6 months simply by stabilising my sugar levels and preventing hunger-pang-binging-spells.

PCB linked to sperm damage

PERSISTENT chemicals in the environment may be damaging human sperm, an international team of scientists reports today.

The team found an apparent link between levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the bloodstream of more than 700 men and the degree of damage to the DNA in their sperm. The damage is insufficient to affect fertility, and the results are equivocal because one group of men — Inuit from Greenland — did not show any link even though they carried high levels of PCBs in their blood.

Nevertheless the findings, in Human Reproduction, seem certain to cause concern.

PCBs are ubiquitous in the environment and, like DDT, persist for decades. Originally produced in the 1950s and 1960s, they are synthetic organic chemicals, ranging from oily liquids to waxy solids, used for electrical insulation, as plasticisers in paint, plastics and rubber, as pigments and dyes and for many other purposes.

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