2005, Volume 11 No. 1

ARTICLE 4

A Study of Blood Glucose Response Following Temperate and Tropical Fruit Ingestion in Healthy Adults

Barakatun Nisak Mohd Yusof, Ruzita Abd. Talib & Norimah A. Karim
Department of Nutrition & Dietetics, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Jalan Raja Muda Abd. Aziz, Kuala Lumpur 50300.

ABSTRACT
Fruits are well known to have high nutritional values. However, the response in blood glucose level varies with different fruits. To date, data has not been compiled to rank local fruits according to their blood glucose response. Therefore, this randomised experimental study was carried out to determine the blood glucose response after consuming ten types of tropical fruits (mango, rambutan, longan, sapodilla, jackfruit, watermelon, papaya and banana of three varieties, brangan, rastali and mas) and four types of temperate fruits (red apple, orange, grape and green pear). A total of 72 healthy subjects randomly divided into groups of 12 to 20 subjects (mean age: 21.5±0.6 years, mean BMI: 21.13±1.49 kgm^-2) were requested to consume test fruits or reference food (glucose) after an overnight fasting on separate occasions. Each test fruit and the glucose contained 50g of carbohydrates. Finger-prick blood samples were obtained at 0 (fasting), 15, 30 60, 90 and 120 min after consuming each fruit. The blood glucose response was obtained by calculating area under the curve (AUC). The AUC ranged between 57.59±10 mmol.min/L and 313.2 mmol.min/L, with glucose showing the highest AUC (p<0.05) compared to all fruits tested. Banana gives the highest blood glucose response while green pear showed the lowest. The fruits ranked in descending order based on the AUC values were longan, followed by rambutan, grapes, watermelon, orange, papaya, jackfruit, sapodilla, mango and red apple. Tropical fruits had significantly higher AUC than temperate fruits (p<0.05). Overall, bananas demonstrated the largest rise in postprandial blood glucose response (62%) when compared to glucose while green pear showed the lowest response (18%). This preliminary data could be used as a recommendation to diabetic patients for optimum blood glucose control.

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