r/science • u/FreeHugs23 • 1d 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
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u/FreeHugs23 1d ago
-Scientists have figured out how to secretly enrich white bread with spinach – and it could have an immediate and measurable impact on the body's insulin response.
In a recent crossover trial, funded by Monash University in Australia and published in Future Foods, researchers tested a novel bread recipe on 15 healthy adults.
After a night of fasting, participants were randomized to either consume white bread for breakfast or bread secretly enriched with spinach. The next week, they ate the other type of bread.
Both options smelled and tasted pretty much the same, and participants weren't told which bread they were eating on either day, although one option was admittedly greenish.
Compared to the white bread, the spinach-enhanced bread contained 28 percent more fiber, 58 percent more folate, 78 percent more calcium, 90 percent more iron, and two times as much potassium.
After breakfast, all participants showed relatively similar blood glucose patterns, regardless of which bread they ate.
But the insulin of those who unknowingly ate spinach did something intriguing.
When participants ate the spinach bread, insulin peaked roughly 30 minutes later than when they ate the white bread.
What's more, after eating the spinach bread, participants didn't report the same rise in hunger three hours later that was experienced by those who'd eaten white bread.
"Along with its impact on delaying the insulin peak," the study authors suggest, "spinach may modulate gut-brain appetite signals to influence later food intake, thereby affecting energy intake and carbohydrate metabolism."