Abstract:
The objective of this study was to determine the blood glucose responses and glycemic
index of pumpkin doughnut. Incorporation of 50% pumpkin in doughnut formulation had
increased the moisture, ash, and crude fat content, and decreased the carbohydrate
content. The study subjects consisted of 14 healthy subjects (7 male and 7 female; mean
age 23.21± 1.53 years, mean body mass index, 20.91± 1.27 kg/m2), were randomly
ingested with 2 test meals, namely, control doughnut and pumpkin doughnut and also
glucose solution (reference food) on separate days. The entire test involved was done in
replication for 2 times. Subjects were fed with the test meals after 10-12 hours overnight
fasting. Each meal contained 50g available carbohydrate whereby 104 g of control
doughnut and 119. 7 g of pumpkin doughnut have to be consumed by each subjects.
Capillary finger-prick blood samples for glucose analysis were obtained at 0, 15, 30, 45,
60, 90 and 120 minute. Result shows that the peak blood glucose levels were observed at
the time of 45 minutes for all the test meals. Glucose solution gave the highest value of
blood glucose level (6.85 ±1.34), followed by control doughnut (5.61±1.03) and pumpkin
doughnut (5.31±1.14). Female showed a higher fasting blood glucose response compared
to male. It was found that there was no significant difference (p>0.05) in the blood
glucose response between the genders for both test meals. The IAUC of glucose was
highest (137.52 ± 11.44), followed by control doughnut (95.99 ± 7.50) and pumpkin
doughnut (79.24 ± 9.03). The GI of control doughnut and pumpkin doughnut were (72.37
± 6.87) and (65.53 ± 7.23) respectively. In conclusion, incorporation of 50% pumpkin
changed the IAUC significantly, but did not change the GI values as compared to control
doughnut.