Effects of meal size reduction on postprandial variables in male volunteers.

To investigate the effects of meal size reduction on postprandial variables, adult male volunteers consumed at noon hot lunches composed of cooked white rice, fried chicken fillet, raisins, bigarreaus and curry sauce with carbohydrate/fat ratios of either 0.77 or 2.04 (37-57 en% carbohydrate, respectively). Prior to the actual experiment, the individual meal sizes were determined by allowing the volunteers to eat a self-preferred amount of the high carbohydrate meal. The test meals were adjusted to either 70 or 100% of the energy content of this individually chosen meal size. A higher degree of satiety was detected up to 4 h after the 100%-size carbohydrate-rich meal as compared to that after the fat-rich meals and the 70%-size carbohydrate-rich meal. The reduction in meal size had only small effects on the postprandial curves of glucose, insulin, free fatty acid and total glycerol in the blood relative to those induced by the variation in carbohydrate/fat ratio in the meals. No significant effects of meal size were detected on the postprandial curve of free glycerol. Thus limited restriction in the size of a meal relative to the ad libitum intake of an individual may be expected to lead to only minor effects on the various postprandial curves in meal-eating studies.