O N L I N E L E T T E R S OBSERVATIONS Glycemic Response to Ingested Dreamﬁelds Pasta Compared With Traditional Pasta O diets we refer to as Low Biologically ur research group has developed Available Glucose (LoBAG) diets. These diets, in short-term studies (5–10 weeks), result in a decrease in glycated hemoglobin that is similar to or greater than that typically obtained with oral medications in patients with type 2 dia- betes (1–3). The diet is lower in carbohy- drates (CHOs) and higher in protein and fat than that recommended by the Amer- ican Heart Association (4) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (5). It is not ketogenic and does not require weight loss. The diets are designated by the CHO content, which is given as a sub- script; for example, if the CHO content is 30% of food energy, the diet would be termed as a LoBAG30 diet. In the diets we have designed, pasta and other cereal grain products are lim- ited. That is, we de-emphasize starch- containing foods. This is because starch is composed entirely of glucose, and the glucose generally is readily available after digestion. Thus, we were particularly interested in the commercially available Deamﬁelds pasta. In its advertisements, Dreamﬁelds states that the product has a “taste like traditional pasta, but contains twice the ﬁber, only 5 grams of digestible carbohydrate per serving and has a 65% lower glycemic index (GI 13 vs. 38)” (Dreamﬁelds informational material, h t t p : / /w w w . d r e a mﬁ el dsfoods.com ) . Therefore, from our perspective, it could be a useful addition to our LoBAG diet menus. After numerous attempts to obtain the data upon which the company based the observation of a dramatically lower glyce- mic index than that observed with tradi- tional pasta was based, we decided to conduct our own simple, single meal study. In this study, we have compared the glucose response over 3 h after ingestion of a 50-g CHO portion of the Dreamﬁelds product with the same dry weight CHO of a traditional commercially available care.diabetesjournals.org pasta. A crossover design was used. Two groups of ﬁve subjects each, i.e., 10 sub- jects total without known diabetes, were recruited for the study. They were not aware of which pasta product was being served. Regarding taste as well as mouth feel, our results conﬁrmed the Dreamﬁelds company claim. All subjects agreed that they could not detect a difference between the Dreamﬁelds product and the traditional pasta. Both were considered to be highly acceptable. When the ﬁrst ﬁve subjects were studied using the same cooking method for both products, the Dreamﬁelds pasta did not result in a smaller glucose rise. To our surprise the mean postmeal glucose curves were essentially identical. Therefore, we studied ﬁve different subjects. The result was the same; that is, the curves were essentially identical (Fig. 1). In 10 people without diabetes, the Dreamﬁelds pasta product we purchased did not result in an improved glucose excursion when compared with a commercially available traditional pasta product as would have been expected based upon the company’s claim. Because we did not test several dif- ferent batches of Dreamﬁelds pasta or other commercially available pasta prod- ucts for comparison, it is possible that Figure 1—Blood glucose response following ingestion of pasta. Study #1, n 5 5 (top). Study #2, n 5 5 (bottom). DIABETES CARE, VOLUME 34, FEBRUARY 2011 e17