Different postprandial plasma ghrelin responses elicited by intake of 6 commercial snack foods in healthy subjects

Snacking is controversially discussed as a good habit in a healthy nutritional regimen. Obviously snack foods may be very different in determining glycemic and hormonal responses related to appetite and satiety. Serving-size, composition, macronutrients are only some of the factors that could trigger a wide hormonal cascade and therefore causing potential deleterious effects on metabolism. In the last decade there has been a great deal of interest to consider ghrelin as a potential target for treating obesity. It has been previously shown that rodents vaccinated against endogenous ghrelin could slow weight gain by decreasing feed efficiency, thus suggesting a primary role played by this hormone in energy homeostasis. Here, 20 healthy individuals (10M/10F; BMI 23.3\ub11.6; 35\ub16 yrs) underwent to OGTT (50-g) and 6 isoglucidic test-meal loads to assess glycemic index (GI), plasma insulin and ghrelin circulating levels induced by 6 commercial snack foods. Ghrelin was significantly lower 3 hours after the snack intake with respect to the basal condition in half of the snack foods (hazelnut chocolate: P<0.001; sponge cake2: P