Abstract
Some short-term pediatric studies have suggested beneficial effects of low glycemic load (LGL) meals on feelings of hunger and on energy intake. However, the effects of LGL diets have not been systematically studied in obese Hispanic children, who stand to benefit from successful interventions. Objective. To examine the effects of LGL and high-GL (HGL) meals on appetitive responses and ad libitum energy intake of obese Hispanic youth. Methods. A total of 88 obese Hispanic youth aged 7–15 years were enrolled in a community-based obesity intervention program and randomly assigned to consume meals designed as either LGL (n = 45) or HGL (n = 43). After 12 weeks, participants were admitted for a 24-hour metabolic study. Following the morning test meal, subjects serially reported hunger, fullness, and satiety using a visual analog scale. Blood insulin and glucose were measured. After 5 hours, participants were fed another test meal and given a snack platter from which to eat ad libitum. All test food was weighed and the energy, macronutrients, and glycemic load (GL) of consumed foods were calculated. Results. The HGL group had significantly higher insulin (p = 0.0005) and glucose (p = 0.0001) responses to the breakfast meal compared with the LGL group. There were no significant between-group differences in energy consumed from the snack platter (1303 vs. 1368 kcal, p = 0.5), or in the subjective feelings of hunger (p = 0.3), fullness (p = 0.5) or satiety (p = 0.3) between the two groups. Conclusions. Our study provides no evidence that, for obese Hispanic youth, changing the GL of the diet affects short-term hunger, fullness, satiety, or energy intake.
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01068197
Acknowledgments
We thank the study participants and the staff of the GCRC at the Children's National Medical Center. This study would not have been possible without the tireless efforts of our research assistants Fernanda Porto Carreiro, Caroline Collins, and Ana Jaramillo. We thank the research dietitians Amy Schweitzer, MS, RD, Lauren Rhee, RD, MS, for their invaluable assistance during the meal studies, Rebecca Murphy, RD, MS, and Amy Trautman, RD for their assistance with the dietary data analysis.
This research was supported by NIH Grants K23-RR022227 (to N.M.M), MO1-RR-020359 awarded by the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR, Bethesda, MD) to support the General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) at Children's National Medical Center, and the following foundations and organizations: Consumer Health Foundation; The Jessie Ball DuPont Foundation; and United Way of the National Capital Area. Dr. Yanovski is a Commissioned Officer in the United States Public Health Service and is supported by the Intramural Research Program of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health. Dr Ludwig is supported in part by career award K24DK082730 from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases had no role in the preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript.
Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.