Longevity Briefs: How does chilling starch-rich food impact sugar in our blood?

Longevity briefs provides a short summary of a novel research, medicine, or technology that caught the attention of our researchers in Oxford, due to its potential to improve our health, wellbeing, and longevity.

Why is this research important: Diabetes is a debilitating disease, that requires a reduction in glucose content of meals in addition to drug therapies. Food that is high in carbohydrates content increases blood glucose rapidly. Therefore, people that suffer from diabetes reduce the consumption of such foods. However, research has shown that consumption of cold potatoes produces a much smaller rise in blood glucose than hot potatoes. This calls to a question, how simple changes to food temperature impact glucose levels in the blood after a meal?

What did the researchers do: In this study, researchers from UK had 10 participants to eat freshly cooked simple pasta meal, chilled pasta and chilled and reheated pasta. Then, their blood glucose contents were measured in a span of 2 hours.

Key takeaway(s) from this research: Concentration of glucose in blood was much higher after eating freshly cooked pasta than after eating chilled or chilled and reheated pasta. The explanation probably lies in chemical changes in starch caused by chilling. More research needs to be conducted, but there is a promising potential to utilizing common domestic practices for a significant health benefit.

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