The effect of Cissus soup meal, on postprandial plasma glucose and insulin levels of normal healthy individuals was investigated. The control meal was a traditional Nigerian soup meal containing meat, fish and vegetables as it is prepared in the South Eastern Nigeria. The test meal was the control meal with added Cissus flour. Chemical analysis showed that Cissus flour contains 28.3g/100g of soluble non-starch polysaccharide (Onyechi, 1995). 35g of Cissus flour was added to the control meal, to provide 10g fibre and served with rice to give a total carbohydrate content of 50 g. The meals were fed to healthy subjects after an overnight fast. The plasma glucose and insulin levels were measured at base line and at 30 minutes intervals for 150 minutes. The post-prandial rise in blood glucose levels were expressed as mean incremental blood glucose calculated relative to the fasting values. The difference between the effect of control soup meal and the Cissus soup meal on the postprandial blood glucose and insulin were analyzed by repeated measures analysis of variance, (ANOVA). The result showed a significant difference (P<0.05) on the postprandial glucose decrease of the test meal at all time intervals, compared to the control meal effect. There was apparent reduction in the postprandial insulin levels of the subjects fed the test meal compared to that of the subjects fed the control soup meal but there was no significant difference at P<0.05.
U Onyechi
