ABSTRACT
Recent studies have reported that the glycemic index (GI) has an effect on developing the risk for metabolic abnormalities such as diabetes, dyslipidemia, and obesity. As there are no reliable GI values for common Korean foods, only a few studies have been carried out using the dietary GI for Korean adults. The aim of this study was to establish a table of GI values for common Korean foods and evaluate dietary glycemic index (DGI) and dietary glycemic load (DGL) among the Korean adult population. International tables of GI values and other published values were used to tabulate GI values for common Korean foods. Among 653 food items, 149 (22.8%) were adapted from published data, 60 (9.2%) were imputed from similar foods, and 444 (68.0%) were assigned a zero. Data from 7,940 subjects aged 20 years and older in the 2007-2008 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were obtained, and DGI and DGL were calculated. The average DGI was 60.0 and the average DGL was 182.5 when the reference food GI value was glucose. After adjusting for potential confounding variables, DGI and DGL increased significantly according to age group (p for trend < 0.001). The food group that contributed most to DGL was grain and its products supplying 85.3% of total DGL, whereas the mean GI value in grain and its products was 72.6. Fruits and potatoes also contributed to DGL (5.8 and 2.9%, respectively), and their GIs were high (67.7 for potatoes and 45.8 for fruits). For individual food items, white rice supplied 66.7% of total GI followed by glutinous rice (2.3%) and steamed white rice cakes (2.0%). In conclusion, a table of GI values for 653 common food items was established in which white rice was the most contributing item to DGL. Our results will be useful to examine the relationships between DGI, DGL, and metabolic abnormalities in the Korean population.