Increasing oat β-glucan viscosity in a breakfast meal slows gastric emptying and reduces glycemic and insulinemic responses but has no effect on appetite, food intake, or plasma ghrelin and PYY responses in healthy humans: a randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover trial

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Ghrelin.

The researchers aimed to determine the effect of altering the amount or molecular weight (MW) and, hence, viscosity of OBG in a breakfast meal on the primary endpoint of food intake at a subsequent meal.

Why It Was Studied

The viscosity of oat β-glucan (OBG) determines its effect on serum cholesterol and glycemic responses, but whether OBG viscosity affects gastric emptying, appetite, and ad libitum food intake is unknown.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 3 subjects were involved.

The age groups tagged for this paper are teenagers, young adults, adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

Gastric emptying, subjective appetite, and glucose, insulin, ghrelin, and peptide tyrosine tyrosine (PYY) responses were assessed for 3 h and then subjects were offered an ad libitum lunch (water and pizza).

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and crossover study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Ghrelin and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

As a double-blind Ghrelin study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

Each person switched between Ghrelin and the comparison at some point, usually with a gap in between.

Overnight-fasted males (n = 16) and nonpregnant females (n = 12) without diabetes, aged 18-60 y, with BMI 20.0-30.0 kg/m² who were unrestrained eaters participated in a double-blind, randomized, crossover study at a contract research organization.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Appetite, Avena, Blood Glucose, Breakfast, Eating, Ghrelin and Insulin.

The authors tagged it with the keywords dietary carbohydrates, food intake, gut hormones, oats, postprandial response and randomized clinical trial.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and crossover study of Ghrelin in 3 subjects.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2020 (The American journal of clinical nutrition), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Ghrelin compound page, all human trials.