Determination of Glucose Kinetics After Wheat and Rye Breads to Understand Their Physiological Effects

Certain functional properties of cereal products, e.g. their postprandial glucose and insulin responses, have been characterized as steps towards obtaining a greater understanding of their beneficial health effects. A low-glycemic index diet results in decreased postprandial insulin and glucose responses, which is thought to be beneficial for insulin and glucose metabolism.

In healthy subjects, it has been shown that rye breads (RBs) produce a lower postprandial insulin response compared with refined wheat breads (RWB) despite similar glucose responses. Juntunen et al. (2003) suggested that the difference in the structural characteristics between rye and wheat breads is a possible explanatory mechanism. However, the underlying mechanism of this discrepancy between insulin and glucose responses to rye bread, the so-called "rye factor" (RF), is still largely unknown. Faster starch digestibility and higher postprandial insulin responses for RWB compared with RBs may indicate faster intestinal glucose absorption and faster glucose disappearance respectively.

Therefore our hypothesis is that despite having similar glucose responses, RWB has faster turn over (kinetics) compared with RBs. The present study is aiming to apply an experimental set up which can comprehend the hypothetical differences in RWB and RBs kinetics.