Determination of glycemic responses of pumpkin muffin in healthy adults

Abstract

Pumpkin is a healthy fruit and contains many nutrients. Pumpkin had also been reported as having anti diabetic function. The aim of this study was to determine the glycemic responses of pumpkin muffin among healthy adults. Twelve subjects (6 males and 6 females), with mean age of 21.75 years and mean BMI of 21.39kg/m2 were randomly fed with two types of muffins, which were muffin made from 100% wheat flour and muffin made with 20% pumpkin puree and 80% wheat flour. Subjects were fed with meals after a 10 - 12 hours fasting and each test meal contained 50g of available carbohydrate within 15 minutes. Capillary finger-prick blood samples were obtained at 0. 15, 30, 45, 60, 90 and 120 minutes. It was found that there was no significant difference between the blood glucose responses for both types of muffins. For the control muffin, the blood glucose response at 30 minutes was significantly higher compared to the blood glucose responses at 90 minutes and 120 minutes. For the pumpkin muffin, the blood glucose response at 30 min was significantly higher than the blood glucose responses at 0, 90 and 120 minutes. Both muffin samples reached the blood glucose response peak at 30 minutes after ingesting test meals. There was no significant difference in the blood glucose responses between genders for both types of muffins. The incremental area under curve (IAUC) for the pumpkin muffin was 16.01±2.46, which was significantly lower than that of control muffin, whereby the lAUC was 27.69±1.80. The glycemic index value for the control muffin was 65.17±9.81 while the glycemic index value for pumpkin muffin was 68.13± I 0.89. The pairedsample t-test showed that there was no significant difference for the glycemic index value between the control muffin and pumkin muffin. The GL value for control muffin was 32.59 and the GL value for pumpkin muffin was 34.07. Both types of muffins were classified under high glycemic index foods.