Logical design of oral glucose ingestion pattern minimizing blood glucose in humans

Abstract

Excessive increase in blood glucose level after eating increases the risk of macroangiopathy, and a method for not increasing the postprandial blood glucose level is desired. However, a logical design method of the dietary ingestion pattern controlling the postprandial blood glucose level has not yet been established. We constructed a mathematical model of blood glucose control by oral glucose ingestion in three healthy human subjects, and predicted that intermittent ingestion 30 min apart was the optimal glucose ingestion patterns that minimized the peak value of blood glucose level. We confirmed with subjects that this intermittent pattern consistently decreased the peak value of blood glucose level. We also predicted insulin minimization pattern, and found that the intermittent ingestion 30 min apart was optimal, which is similar to that of glucose minimization pattern. Taken together, these results suggest that the glucose minimization is achieved by suppressing the peak value of insulin concentration, rather than by enhancing insulin concentration. This approach could be applied to design optimal dietary ingestion patterns.

Abstract

The key points of this study are three-fold: The first point is the physiological impact. Intuitively, an ingestion pattern that minimizes the maximum blood glucose level is expected to be a slow, continuous ingestion. We found that the optimal minimization pattern was an intermittent pattern with 30 min intervals. The second point is the methodology. We constructed the mathematical model as a forward problem, and in turn, predicted input pattern by control the output pattern of interest as an inverse problem. The third point is the experiment design used to generate the mathematical model; dense time course data for six ingestion patterns combining of 3 doses of glucose level and 2 durations of ingestion.