For people with diabetes, blood sugar control is particularly important. In the daily diet, it is necessary to control blood sugar and pay attention to the intake of various nutrients. Studies have shown that in addition to carbohydrates themselves that can cause blood sugar to rise, some functional ingredients, such as dietary fiber, sugar alcohols and plant extracts, can also affect blood sugar fluctuations. These functional ingredients do not cause blood sugar rise by themselves, but reduce the glycemic response of food by inhibiting the digestion and absorption of carbohydrates.
What Glycemic Responses Means?
Glycemic responses (GR) refer to the effect of food on blood sugar fluctuations. Glycemic response studies can be used to test the effect of some foods containing available carbohydrates on blood sugar. It can also be used to study the effect of some ingredients that do not contain available carbohydrates on the glycemic response to food.
Common functional ingredients include functional sugars and plant extracts. They reduce the glycemic response to food by inhibiting the rate of carbohydrate digestion.
What Functional Ingredients Low Glycemic Responses?
1. Functional sugar
Functional sugars mainly include dietary fiber and functional sugar alcohols. Except for some sugar alcohols among functional sugars, the others are non-utilizable carbohydrates. Not only does it not have the ability to increase blood sugar, but it can also delay the digestion of available carbohydrates in food, thereby reducing the postprandial blood sugar response to food.
2. Plant extracts
Plant extract refers to the directional acquisition and enrichment of one or more active ingredients in plants using plants as raw materials, according to the needs of the final product of extraction, through the process of physical and chemical extraction and separation.
The hypoglycemic active factors in plant extracts include saponins, terpenes, polypeptides, amino acids, polysaccharides, flavonoids, unsaturated fatty acids, alkaloids, sulfur bonds, and phenylpropanol. These active substances widely exist in natural plants including vegetables, fruits and some Chinese herbal medicines with the same source of medicine and food. They all have the potential to act as functional factors in reducing the glycemic response to food.
Plant extracts can reduce the blood glucose response to food by inhibiting the activity of digestive enzymes, slowing down the absorption of glucose, and inhibiting the digestion rate of carbohydrates.
Summary
Foods with a lower glycemic response are more conducive to the stabilization of postprandial blood glucose in diabetics. Functional sugars and active factors in natural plant extracts can reduce the digestion and absorption of carbohydrates in food through multiple modes of action, thereby reducing the postprandial glycemic response of food. This has important guiding significance for the development of low GI products.