FIGURE 4.

Typical patterns of gastric emptying of solid (green) and liquid (red) foods in relation to meals and intermeal intervals. Depending on the physical digestibility of solid foods, emptying during the first several minutes is very slow (the lag phase), whereas it is uncontrolled and rapid for liquids. The overall shapes of the gastric emptying curves for solid food after the lag phase and for liquid foods are exponential, although significant extents of each approximate linear functions. As described in the text, gastric emptying plays important roles in the control of eating and meal-related glycemia.