Postprandial glycaemic response: how is it influenced by characteristics of cereal products?

Cereal products exhibit a wide range of glycaemic indexes (GI), but the interaction of their different nutrients and starch digestibility on blood glucose response is not well known. The objective of this analysis was to evaluate how cereal product characteristics can contribute to GI and insulinaemic index and to the parameters describing glycaemic or insulinaemic responses (incremental AUC, maximum concentration and Δ(peak)). Moreover, interactions between the different cereal products characteristics and glycaemic response parameters were assessed for the first time. Relationships between the cereal products characteristics and the glycaemic response were analysed by partial least square regressions, followed by modelling. A database including 190 cereal products tested by the usual GI methodology was used. The model on glycaemic responses showed that slowly digestible starch (SDS), rapidly digestible starch (RDS) and fat and fibres, and several interactions involving them, significantly explain GI by 53 % and Δ(peak) of glycaemia by 60 %. Fat and fibres had important contributions to glycaemic response at low and medium SDS contents in cereal products, but this effect disappears at high SDS levels. We showed also for the first time that glycaemic response parameters are dependent on interactions between starch digestibility (interaction between SDS and RDS) and nutritional composition (interaction between fat and fibres) of the cereal products. We also demonstrated the non-linear effect of fat and fibres (significant effect of their quadratic terms). Hence, optimising both the formula and the manufacturing process of cereal products can improve glucose metabolism, which is recognised as strongly influential on human health.