American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 26, 600-607, Copyright © 1973 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc.

Effect of high glucose and high sucrose diets on glucose tolerance of normal men

¹ From the Metabolic Division, U.S. Army Medical Research and Nutrition Laboratory, Fitzsimons General Hospital, Denver, Colorado 80240

The influence of the type and amount of dietary carbohydrate on the glucose tolerance test (GTT) has been studied in 13 normal men. Ingestion of a diet containing 20% of calories as glucose and 65% as fat led to significant abnormalities of the GTT. As the dietary glucose content was increased progressively to 40, 60, and 80% of calories, a gradual improvement of GTT occurred, and the GTT on the 80%-glucose diet did not differ significantly from control tests. When normal subjects were changed from a control diet to one containing 80% of calories as sucrose, significant improvement in the oral GTT occurred. These improvements in GTT were associated with slight reductions in plasma insulin values. These studies demonstrate that short-term periods (up to 10 weeks) on a high sucrose diet lead to improvement of the glucose tolerance in normal subjects.