Upper-gastrointestinal tract metabolite profile regulates glycaemic and satiety responses to meals with contrasting structure: a pilot study
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Dietary interventions to combat non-communicable diseases focus on optimising food intake but overlook the influence of food structure. Here, we investigate how food structure influences digestion. In a randomised crossover study, ten healthy participants were fitted with nasoenteric tubes that allow simultaneous gastric and duodenal sampling, before consuming iso-nutrient chickpea meals with contrasting cellular structures. Primary outcome is gut hormone response. Secondary outcomes are intestinal content analysis, blood glucose and insulin response, subjective appetite changes and ad libitum energy intake. We show that the ‘broken’ and ‘intact’ cell structures of meals result in different digestive and metabolomic profiles, leading to distinct postprandial gut hormones, glycaemia and satiety responses. ‘Broken' meal structure elicits higher GIP, GLP-1, and blood glycaemia, driven by high starch digestibility and a sharp rise in gastric maltose within 30 minutes. ‘Intact’ meal structure produces a prolonged release of GLP-1 and PYY, elevated duodenal amino acids, and undigested starch at 120 minutes. This work highlights how food structure alters upper gastrointestinal-nutrient-sensing hormones, providing insights into the adverse effects of modern diets on obesity and type 2 diabetes. ISRCTN registration: ISRCTN18097249.
Date Issued
2025-07-01
Date Acceptance
2025-04-29
Citation
Nature Metabolism, 2025, 7, pp.1459-1475
ISSN
2522-5812
Publisher
Nature Research
Start Page
1459
End Page
1475
Journal / Book Title
Nature Metabolism
Volume
7
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2026. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
10.1038/s42255-025-01309-7
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2025-06-20