Post-prandial glycemic responses to high fiber pastries in healthy adults

Background As people with glycemia dysregulation should avoid high post-prandial hyperglycemia, consumption of pastries is not recommended. In order to allow the pleasure of eating sweet products for this population, pastries with high fiber content and with some sucrose replacement were developed. The aim of this study was to evaluate the glycemic index of six gourmet pastries with low sucrose and high fiber content. Methods Ten healthy volunteers were enrolled in the study. Each week, participants consumed either a high fiber pastry containing 50g of available carbohydrate or a reference drink containing 50g of glucose within 10 minutes. Blood samples were collected at 0, 15, 30, 45, 60, 90 and 120 minutes after pastry (or reference drink) consumption. Glucose and insulin responses were obtained by calculating the incremental Area Under the Curve (iAUC). Results All six gourmet pastries induced a very slight increase in post-prandial glycemia. Calculated glycemic index values ranged between 6.6 and 18.2 depending on pastry. Insulin response was also lower for the six pastries compared to the reference drink. Insulin index values ranged between 39.9 and 67.1. Conclusions The high fiber content of pastries and the replacement of sucrose with low glycemic index sugars induced low glycemic and insulin responses. These pastries could therefore be consumed by people wishing to control their post-prandial glycemia. This study was retrospectively registered on Clinical Trials website on 2022-03-31 under the number NCT05306106, https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05306106.