Cooking enhances beneficial effects of pea seed coat consumption on glucose tolerance, incretin, and pancreatic hormones in high-fat-diet-fed rats.

Pulses, including dried peas, are nutrient- and fibre-rich foods that improve glucose control in diabetic subjects compared with other fibre sources. We hypothesized feeding cooked pea seed coats to insulin-resistant rats would improve glucose tolerance by modifying gut responses to glucose and reducing stress on pancreatic islets. Glucose intolerance induced in male Sprague-Dawley rats with high-fat diet (HFD; 10% cellulose as fibre) was followed by 3 weeks of HFD with fibre (10%) provided by cellulose, raw-pea seed coat (RP), or cooked-pea seed coat (CP). A fourth group consumed low-fat diet with 10% cellulose. Oral and intraperitoneal glucose tolerance tests (oGTT, ipGTT) were done. CP rats had 30% and 50% lower glucose and insulin responses in oGTT, respectively, compared with the HFD group (P < 0.05) but ipGTT was not different. Plasma islet and incretin hormone concentrations were measured. α- and β-cell areas in the pancreas and density of K- and L-cells in jejunum and ileum were quantified. Jejunal expression of hexose transporters was measured. CP feeding increased fasting glucagon-like peptide 1 and glucose-stimulated gastric inhibitory polypeptide responses (P < 0.05), but K- and L-cells densities were comparable to HFD, as was abundance of SGLT1 and GLUT2 mRNA. No significant difference in β-cell area between diet groups was observed. α-cell area was significantly smaller in CP compared with RP rats (P < 0.05). Overall, our results demonstrate that CP feeding can reverse adverse effects of HFD on glucose homeostasis and is associated with enhanced incretin secretion and reduced α-cell abundance.