The beneficial effect of a diet with low glycaemic index on 24 h glucose profiles in healthy young people as assessed by continuous glucose monitoring.

Elevated postprandial glycaemia has been linked to CVD in a number of different epidemiological studies involving predominantly non-diabetic volunteers. The MiniMed continuous glucose monitor, which measures blood glucose every 5 min, over a 24 h period, was used to investigate changes in blood glucose readings before and after instigating a diet with low glycaemic index (GI) for 1 week in free-living healthy individuals. Nine healthy people (age 27 (SEM 1.3) years, BMI 23.7 (SEM 0.7) kg/m2, one male, eight females) completed the study. A reduction in GI (59.7 (SEM 2) v. 52.1 (SEM 2), P<0.01) occurred in all nine subjects while energy and other macronutrients remained constant. A significant reduction was also observed in fasting glucose at 06.00 hours (5.4 (SEM 0.2) v. 4.4 (SEM 0.3) mmol/l, P<0.001), mean glucose (5.6 (SEM 0.2) v. 5.1 (SEM 0.2) mmol/l, P=0.004), area under the 24 h glucose curve (8102 (SEM 243) v. 750 (SEM 235) mmol/l per min, P=0.004) and area under the overnight, 8 h glucose curve (2677 (SEM 92) v. 2223 (SEM 121) mmol/l per min, P=0.01). The present study provides important data on how a simple adjustment to the diet can improve glucose profiles that, if sustained in the long term, would be predicted from epidemiological studies to have a favourable influence on CVD.