A NEW BREAKFAST CEREAL CONTAINING GUAR GUM REDUCES POSTPRANDIAL PLASMA-GLUCOSE AND INSULIN CONCENTRATIONS IN NORMAL-WEIGHT HUMAN-SUBJECTS

A new guar-containing wheatflake product was developed to assess its e ffect on carbohydrate tolerance in normal-weight, healthy subjects. Th e extruded wheatflake breakfast cereals containing 0 (control) or appr oximately 90 g guar gum/kg DM were fed to ten fasting, normal-weight, healthy subjects using a repeated measures design. The meals were simi lar in energy (approximately 1.8 MJ), available carbohydrate (78 g), p rotein (15 g) and fat (5.4 g) content. The guar gum content of the tes t meals was 6.3 g. Venous blood samples were taken fasting and at 15, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, 150 and 240 min after commencing each breakfast a nd analysed for plasma glucose, insulin and C-peptide. The guar wheatf lake meal produced a significant main effect for glucose and insulin a t 0-60 min and 0-240 min time intervals respectively, but not for the C-peptide levels compared with the control meal. Significant reduction s in postprandial glucose and insulin responses were seen following th e guar wheatflake meal compared with the control meal at 15 and 60 min (glucose) and 15, 60, 90 and 120 min (insulin). The 60 and 120 min ar eas under the curve for glucose and insulin were significantly reduced by the guar gum meal, as was the 240 min area under the curve for ins ulin. Thus, it can be concluded that the use of a severe method of hea t extrusion to produce guar wheatflakes does not diminish the physiolo gical activity of the guar gum.