Pectin and complications after gastric surgery: normalisation of postprandial glucose and endocrine responses.

Pectin has been shown to minimise the fall in blood glucose seen in patients who are troubled by hypoglycaemia attacks after gastric surgery. We therefore performed 50 g glucose tolerance tests with and without 14.5 g pectin on 11 post-gastric surgery patients. After pectin, the high postprandial levels of glucose, insulin, and enteroglucagon were significantly reduced as was the fall in blood glucose between 90 and 120 minutes. These effects of pectin may reflect slower uptake of glucose from the gastrointestinal tract and provide evidence to support the use of unabsorbable carbohydrate gelling agents in treating hypoglycaemia after gastric surgery.