The effect of adding whey or casein protein to ice cream in reducing postprandial blood glucose elevation among young healthy adults:

The aim of this study is to compare the effects of adding whey or casein protein to ice cream in reducing postprandial blood glucose elevation. We added 13.6 g of whey and 15.3 g of casein protein to create whey ice cream (WI, whey: casein ratio of 15:85) and casein ice cream (CI, whey: casein ratio of 97:3), respectively, with a total protein content of 15.0 g. A randomized, single-blind, crossover study of 30 young healthy participants was conducted to examine the differences in blood glucose elevation to 120 min after consumption of WI, CI, and sherbet (SB, whey: casein ratio of 0:0) without milk protein as a control meal. WI and CI showed significantly lower blood glucose levels at 15 min (p＜0.001), 30 min (p＜0.001), and 60 min (p＜0.001), maximal blood glucose level (p＜0.001), and blood glucose area under the curve (p＜0.001) than SB. However, no significant differences were found between the WI and CI groups in any category (p＞0.05). This study suggests that WI and CI may reduce postprandial blood glucose elevation compared to SB. The addition of milk proteins, such as whey or casein, to ice cream may be useful for developing ice cream that does not increase blood glucose levels.