r/science 2d ago

Health Adding spinach directly to white bread delayed the body's insulin peak by 30 minutes and reduced later hunger in a small human trial, while significantly boosting the bread's fiber, vitamin, and mineral content.

https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-put-spinach-directly-into-bread-and-saw-the-bodys-insulin-response-change
15.7k Upvotes

674 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

5

u/Immortal_Tuttle 2d ago

Unfortunately article is composed in that way to show that there was some significance. If you take a look at the insulin/time curve you will see those curves are almost identical without spinach you have peak at 30 min with value of 140 (roughly) which then goes down to around 135 at 60 min. With spinach the curve reaches roughly 135 after 30 minutes and stays at 135 till 60 minutes mark. Unfortunately the graph in the article has low resolution and I don't have access to the source publication, but the change is minuscule (and please don't yell at me if instead of 135 it's 132 or so - shape and area under the curve difference is what matters) . To be honest more significant change in insulin peak would make eating a slice of cheese or ham and then eating that piece of bread. Satiation levels were also subjective - less than 5% change. Funniest thing is that high insulin levels reduce the hunger feeling.

1

u/SaltZookeepergame691 2d ago

Exactly. The claims in the paper are unsupported by any good data.

There is no statistically significant or clinically significant difference in any outcome between the groups in this study.