The effect of β-glucan on the glycemic and insulin index

To determine the effects of oat products with increasing beta-glucan content on the glycemic (GI) and insulin indexes (II) of oat products, and to establish the effect of physical properties of beta-glucan on these physiological responses.Test group (n=10) randomly attended to three glucose tolerance tests and glycemic response tests for four oat bran products.Functional Foods Forum and the Department of Food Chemistry, University of Turku, and the Department of Food Technology, University of Helsinki.One male and nine female volunteers were recruited from university students and staff, and all completed the study.GI and II of different products were calculated for each subject using the average of parallel glucose tolerance tests and the subsequent glycemic/insulinemic responses for each product. Average indexes for products were calculated according to the individual data.The glycemic responses to oat products with increasing amounts of beta-glucan had lower peak values than the reference glucose load. The amount of extractable beta-glucan had a high correlation between the glycemic and insulinemic response.In addition to the total amount of beta-glucan in oat products, the amount of extractable beta-glucan in oat products explains the magnitude of the decrease in glycemic responses to carbohydrate products.