Lipid-lowering Effects of Foxtail Millet (Setariaitalica) and Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoawild) in Pre-diabetics

The present investigation was aimed to study the effect of foxtail millet (FM) and quinoa (QA) food supplementation on lipid profile in non-diabetic subjects with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT). A cross over design was used for this study. Ten subjects were given 65 g of QA for 30, days and with a wash of 15, FM was given for another 30 days and lipid levels were studied. Supplementation of QA followed by FM significantly(p=.05) reduced all lipid fractions. QA consumption significantly reduced all fractions of lipids than that of FM except HDL-C. FM consumption resulted in significant reductions in TC and LDL-C but not in other fractions. Though not significant, a higher increase in HDL-C was exhibited by FM (1.7 mg/dl) than by QA (0.5 mg/dl). These differences can be attributed to the higher dietary fibre and lower carbohydrate content of QA than that of FM. During the 60 days, consumption of QA and FM was found to have an overall benefit of lowering TC, TG, LDL-C, VLDL-C and HDL-C by 10.77, 6.83, 3.39, 14.63 and 7.71% respectively. The study demonstrated that consumption of QA and FM are beneficial for the risk reduction of higher lipids in the human subjects.