Effects of Common Sri Lankan Dinner Foods on Fasting Blood Glucose and Triglyceride Levels: A Pilot Study

Among the blood glucose assessing parameters, fasting blood sugar (FBS) plays a key role in screening, diagnosis, management and monitoring of diabetes mellitus. Diet is a crucial factor which alters the FBS and especially the dinner foods might interfere with the FBS the next day. Our objective was to assess the effect on FBS and TAG of healthy individuals with the consumption of common Sri Lankan dinner foods (rice and curry, fried rice, kottu and soup with bread). A randomized crossover experimental study was conducted with 13 healthy individuals (age :22-26 years, BMI :18 – 23kg/m2 , FBS <110mg/dl, TAG < 150mg/dl), selected by simple random sampling. Participants were provided with four dinner foods (portion size= 300g) 1) rice and curry (838kcal), 2) fried rice (932 kcal), 3) kottu (937kcal) and 4) soup with bread (422kcal) on four different days keeping a 3-4 day gap between test days. Participants were requested to fast for 8-10 hours and FBS and TAG levels were assessed the next day morning using glucose oxidase assay kit, and TAG colorimetric assay kit respectively. Data were analysed using repeated measures ANOVA and Tukey’s post hoc test and the presence of significant differences were determined at 95% confidence interval. Obtained results show that rice and curry meal showed significantly lower (p<0.05) mean FBS (65 mg/dL) compared to all other foods. Compared to kottu and fried rice, a significantly lower FBS value was obtained for soup meal (p<0.005) while there was no significant difference (p=0.666) between kottu and fried rice. TAG levels did not show any statistical significance among meals. The present pilot study concluded that the rice and curry meal for dinner has the lowest effect on FBS. Even within the normoglycemic range, fried rice and kottu taken for dinner significantly elevate the FBS levels compared to a soup meal or a rice and curry meal. None of the tested meals for dinner significantly changed the TAG.Keywords: Dinner food, Fasting blood sugar, Triacylglycerol