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Yam Contributes to Improvement of Glucose Metabolism in Rats

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Abstract

To investigate whether yam improves glucose metabolism, yam-containing diets were given to Wistar rats. In a short-term experiment, fasted-rats were given 1.0 g of a control and 20% yam-containing diets. At 60 min after start of the feeding, glucose level in the yam diet group was lower or tended to be lower than that in the control diet. Insulin levels at 30 min and 60 min were significantly lower than those in the control group. In a long-term experiment, a normal diet (N) or 25% high fat diets with (Y) or without 15% yam powder (HF) were given to rats for 4 weeks. At 4 weeks, in an oral glucose tolerance test, the area under the curve (AUC) of plasma glucose level was higher in the HF group than that in the N group, whereas those in the Y groups did not differ from that in the N group. Glycosylated hemoglobin levels had similar tendency to the AUCs. Plasma leptin levels in the Y groups were significantly higher than that in the N group. In conclusion, yam may contribute to improvement of glucose metabolism. Additionally, we speculated that leptin level is possibly involved in the insulin-response to yam diets.

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Abbreviations

AUC:

area under the curve

DM:

diabetes mellitus

Exp.:

experiment

GH:

glycosylated hemoglobin

GI:

glycemic index

HF:

high fat diet

RS:

resistant starch

SEM:

standard error of the mean

TG:

triacylglyceride

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported by a grant from Cooperation for Innovative Technology and Advanced Research in Evolutional Area (City Area Program). The authors thank Minako Saito with her skillful assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Memuro Upland Farming Research Station, National Agricultural Research Center for Hokkaido Region, Memuro, Hokkaido, 082-0081, Japan

    Naoto Hashimoto, Takahiro Noda, Sun-Ju Kim, Md Zaidul Islam Sarker, Hiroaki Yamauchi, Shigenobu Takigawa, Chie Matsuura-Endo & Tatsuro Suzuki

  2. Department of Agriculture and Life Science, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Obihiro, Hokkaido, 080-8555, Japan

    Kyu-Ho Han & Michihiro Fukushima

  3. Faculty of Food Science and Technology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, UPM Serdang, Selangor, DE, Malaysia

    Md Zaidul Islam Sarker

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  1. Naoto Hashimoto
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  2. Takahiro Noda
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  3. Sun-Ju Kim
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  4. Md Zaidul Islam Sarker
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Correspondence to Naoto Hashimoto.

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Hashimoto, N., Noda, T., Kim, SJ. et al. Yam Contributes to Improvement of Glucose Metabolism in Rats. Plant Foods Hum Nutr 64, 193–198 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11130-009-0126-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11130-009-0126-z

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