Fig. 3. Effect of oat β-glucan molecular weight and dose on postprandial glycaemic responses.

Pooled dose-response relationship by low, medium and high molecular weight oat β-glucan on the incremental area under the curve (iAUC) for blood glucose (A–C) and incremental peak rise (iPeak) for blood glucose (D–F). Changes in the outcomes (y-axis) are presented as ratios of means (RoMs). Oat β-glucan dose is presented on a 1 g/30 g available carbohydrate scale. Individual comparisons are represented by the circles, with the weight of the study in the overall analysis represented by the size of the circles. The light grey and blue circles represent the trial comparisons with matched and unmatched comparators, respectively. The central straight line represents the fitted dose response estimate with outer dashed lines representing the 95% confidence intervals (CIs), which was modelled using one-stage random effects with the generic inverse variance and restricted maximum likelihood methods, assuming a linear function. The vertical dashed line represents the dose level at which the upper-bound 95% CIs cross the physiologically relevant threshold of a 20% reduction.