Fatty acids, epicatechin-dimethylgallate, and rutin interact with buckwheat starch inhibiting its digestion by amylase: implications for the decrease in glycemic index by buckwheat flour.

Glycemic indexes of bread made from mixtures of wheat flour and buckwheat flour are lower than those made from wheat flour. To discuss the mechanism of the buckwheat flour-dependent decrease in glycemic indexes, the formation of a starch-iodine complex and amylase-catalyzed digestion of starch were studied using buckwheat flour itself and buckwheat flour from which fatty acids, rutin, and proanthocyanidins including flavan-3-ols had been extracted. Absorbance due to the formation of a starch-iodine complex was larger in extracted than control flour, and starch in extracted flour was more susceptible to pancreatin-induced digestion than starch in control flour. Fatty acids, which were found in the buckwheat flour extract, bound to amylose in the extracted flour, inhibiting its digestion by pancreatin. Rutin and epicatechin-dimethylgallate, which were also found in the extract, bound to both amylose and amylopectin in the extracted flour, inhibiting their digestion induced by pancreatin. We discussed from these results that the lower glycemic indexes of bread made from mixtures of wheat flour and buckwheat flour were due to binding of fatty acids, rutin, and epicatechin-dimethylgallate, which were contained in buckwheat flour, to wheat flour starch.