The Impact of a minimally processed high fat meal on postprandial glucose, lipids and metabolic index in prediabetics.

There is an increasing global prevalence of prediabetes, which often progresses to Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and may result in other cardiovascular complications. Elevated levels of glucose (GLU) and triglycerides (TRG) have also been linked with other diabetes-related complications such as kidney disease, nerve damage, vision impairment, and so on. Even a single high-fat meal (HFM) may result in adverse metabolic outcomes which are a better predictor of risk for cardiovascular disease risk than measuring fasting levels. Also, a single HFM induces a greater TRG, GLU and metabolic load index (MLI; GLU + TRG) response in prediabetics compared to healthy control subjects. Therefore, reducing these metabolic outcomes after a typical HFM which is often consumed in the Western diet is of critical importance to reduce chronic disease risk. Various lifestyle interventions, dietary modifications, and drug therapies have been explored for managing prediabetes. Our study aimed to investigate whether incorporating polyphenols and dietary fiber into a high-fat meal HFM would reduce postprandial TRG, GLU and MLI in prediabetics compared to the HFM without added polyphenols and fiber. Further, we wanted to identify whether the polyphenols and/or the fiber content of the pies contributed to the greatest attenuation in postprandial TRG, GLU and MLI. We hypothesized that the HPHF meal would exhibit the largest attenuation in postprandial TRG, GLU, and MLI compared to the other three meal conditions. A randomized crossover design was utilized where eight subjects diagnosed with prediabetes by fasting GLU or HbA1c levels between 5.7-6.4% were randomly assigned to four HFM conditions: (1) a standard high-fat meal (HFM) we have previously shown to increase TRG and GLU, (2) a high polyphenol, high fiber (HPHF) meal, (3) a high polyphenol, low fiber (HPLF) meal, and (4) a low polyphenol, high fiber (LPHF) meal. Each HFM was matched in kcals, fat and carbohydrate, and each HFM was 12 kcals/kg of body weight. On each trial day, subjects arrived after a 12-hour overnight fast, and their weights were measured to ensure stability throughout the study. Catheter insertion was performed to assess baseline values before administering the meal. Meals were consumed within 20 minutes, and blood samples were drawn from the catheter at 30, 60, 90, 120, 180, 240, 300, and 360 minutes to evaluate metabolic markers (i.e. TRG, GLU, MLI, low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C) cholesterol, and high-density lipoprotein (HDL-C) cholesterol and total cholesterol (TC).