> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.foodconsumer.org/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# High glycemic index carbs may raise heart disease risk
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/high_glycemic_index_carbs_may_raise_heart_disease_risk_130410054/
- Published: 2010-04-13T00:45:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-15T12:46:50.000Z
- Description: Among 47,749 Italian adults followed nearly eight years, women in the top quarter for glycemic load were 2.2 times as likely to be diagnosed with coronary heart disease as those in the lowest. No such link appeared in men, and the study cannot establish cause.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Food, Nutrition, #vivvo-import

A new study in the April 12, 2010 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine suggests that women eating high amounts of carbohydrates with high glycemic index may be at high risk for heart disease.

The study showed that women who ate the highest amount of carbohydrates with a high glycemic index were more than twice as likely as those who had the lowest intake of these carbohydrates to be diagnosed with heart disease. The same association was not observed in men.

This is only a suggestion as the study is not a trial meaning that a causal relationship was not estabolished in the study. Other factors that were associated with glycemic index may actually attribute to the higher risk for heart disease. 

The glycemic index is a measure of how fast a food raise blood sugar compared with the same amount of glucose. The glycemic load is equal to glycemic index x the amount of the food /100.

Sabina Sieri, Ph.D., of Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, Italy, and colleagues surveyed 47,749 Italian adults for their dietary habits through a dietary questionnaire. And they followed the study participants for an average 7.9 years during which, 463 (158 women and 305 men were diagnosed with coronary heart disease.

The researchers found the one-fourth of women who consumed the highest glycemic load were at a 2.2 times greater risk for heart disease compared with the one-fourth eating the lowest glycemic load.

When carbohydrates were separated into high- and low glycemic index categories, the researchers found increased intake of high glycemic index foods was significantly associated with greater risk for coronary heart disease while low-glycemic index carbohydrates were not.

"Thus, a high consumption of carbohydrates from high–glycemic index foods, rather than the overall quantity of carbohydrates consumed, appears to influence the risk of developing coronary heart disease," the authors write.

However, the associations were not observed in men.

A health observer suggested that there is another possibility. Pasta is a common carbohydrate consumed along with all types of cheese and meat balls in Italy. Association of carbohydrates with heart disease means cheese and meat balls were also associated with the risk while the researchers did not point that out.

In fact, early studies have associated with high intake of cheese and meat with increased risk for heart disease. 

One study led by Panagiotakos D and colleagues from Harokopio University in Athens, Greece and published in the May 2009 issue of Nutrition and Metabolism of Cardiovascular Disease found dietary patterns mainly characterized by sweets, red meat, margarine, salty nuts intake, and hard cheese were associated with 26 percent higher risk for cardiovascular disease.

Although like the current study, the Panagiotakos study could not prove eating red meat and cheese actually raised the risk for heart disease. But it's equally unfair for the researchers of the current study to single out carbohydrates as a possible cause for the increased risk for heart disease.

Colin T Campbell, a distinguished nutrition professor at Cornell University who published more than 300 original research papers, says in his book China Study that Chinese people who ate lots of rice and wheat products and other plant foods are at low risk for heart disease compared to those who eat other types of foods.

The most important thing to do is eat a nutrtionally balanced diet, the health observer suggested,

By David Liu