Moderating carbohydrate digestion rate promotes metabolic flexibility in mice

Abstract

Superior metabolic flexibility, or the ability to efficiently switch between oxidation of carbohydrate and fat, is inversely associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes. This study examined the impact of dietary carbohydrate digestion rate on metabolic substrate utilization and metabolic flexibility. We employed percent relative cumulative frequency (PRCF) analyses coupled with a new application of modeling using the Mixed Weibull Cumulative Distribution function to examine respiratory exchange ratio (RER) data from wild-type mice and mice lacking the mucosal maltase-glucoamylase enzyme (Mgam, null) under different dietary carbohydrate conditions. We further devised a Metabolic Flexibility Factor (MFF) to quantitate metabolic flexibility, with higher MFF indicating higher metabolic flexibility. The collective results indicated that a diet high in slowly digestible starch exhibited higher metabolic flexibility (MFF) than diets high in resistant starch, sucrose, or fat. These findings show a new-found benefit of consuming slowly digestible carbohydrates for improved metabolic health.