A Review on Buckwheat and Its Hypoglycemic Bioactive Components in Food Systems

ABSTRACT

Type 2 diabetes has become a serious global health problem, and a healthy dietary pattern can help to prevent and treat it early. Higher consumption of whole grains, such as cereals and pseudocereals, is a strategy to mitigate this global epidemic. Buckwheat is a common pseudocereal that is rich in protein, dietary fiber, slowly digestible starch, polyphenols and phytochemical compounds. These components with biological functions have led to increasing attention on the health benefits of buckwheat, specifically its hypoglycemic property. However, buckwheat remains an under-utilized crop. This review aims to provide an overview of the extraction process, the types of bioactive components present in buckwheat, and potential mechanisms of action that could lead to a blood glucose-lowering effect in the human body. The effect of thermal treatments on the functional properties and in vitro digestibility of some components are also discussed. Further, the application of buckwheat in foods and diets in both in vitro and in vivo studies on glycemia is also mentioned. The hypoglycemic effect of buckwheat consumption and the potential for the utilization of buckwheat in functional food products described herein aim to help increase the awareness of its benefits and demand.

KEYWORDS:

• Buckwheat
• hypoglycemic
• mechanism of action
• extraction
• food applications

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by A*STAR BMRC (Biomedical Research Council) on IAF-PP (HBMS Domain): H17/01/a0/A11 Food Structure Engineering for Nutrition and Health-CNRC Core Funds to Professor Christiani Jeyakumar Henry.

Author contributions

Jie Hong CHIANG and Xin Yi HUA: Conceptualisation, Writing-Original Draft, Writing-Review & Editing. Ashley YU, Elaine PEH and E’ein SEE: Writing-Original Draft, Writing-Review & Editing. Christiani Jeyakumar HENRY: Conceptualisation, Writing-Review & Editing, Funding acquisition.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/87559129.2022.2103706.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the A*STAR BMRC (Biomedical Research Council) [H17/01/a0/A11]