85 per cent of all cases<\/a>. As our busy lives get even busier, those lifestyle factors such as choosing convenient food options with potentially less nutritional value over preparing healthy meals, further increase our risk of developing the disease, for which there is no cure.<\/p>\nFood scientist, Associate Professor Stuart Johnson, from Curtin\u2019s School of Public Health and Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute, has spent his career researching legumes such as lupins and chickpeas to understand their potential as health beneficial foods, and using these foods to create healthy and palatable products. This quest led him to a truly unique research pathway: investigating sorghum as an undervalued cereal grain that can help battle chronic diseases, including diabetes.<\/p>\n
\u2018Sorghum\u2019 is a grass or cereal grain similar to wheat. Originating in Ethiopia, it\u2019s used in Africa for a range of purposes including as a staple food and in fermented beverages such as beer. Globally, it\u2019s the fifth most produced grain (behind wheat, maize, rice and barley), however in Australia, is considered to a be a low-value grain predominantly used in animal feed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at sorghum\u2019s overall nutritional composition, it just looks like wheat; mainly starch, when in fact it\u2019s absolutely not in terms of the way the body handles it, in terms of its digestion and bioactive phytochemicals (the special compounds in plants)\u201d, Johnson explains.<\/p>\n
Johnson\u2019s research project, an Australian Research Council funded collaboration between the University of Wollongong and industry partner organisation Sanitarium Health & Wellbeing, entitled \u2018Slowly digestible, high antioxidant sorghum: a new wholegrain food paradigm to help combat type 2 diabetes\u2019, first took shape after Johnson attended a meeting whilst working interstate to find out more about sorghum.<\/p>\n
The meeting\u2019s focus was on improving the quality of sorghum as pig feed to produce larger pigs at a faster rate, however, graph after graph revealed sorghum\u2019s slow starch digestibility, thus reducing energy intake, and high levels of polyphenolics \u2013 commonly known as \u2018antioxidants\u2019 \u2013 that may assist in reducing the progression of chronic diseases. Johnson came to the realisation that this grain could be highly beneficial for humans at risk of developing lifestyle diseases associated with over-energy nutrition, including diabetes, yet surprisingly little research had been conducted in this area.<\/p>\n
\u201cI looked in the literature and there was no information, none whatsoever. No experimental information in this paradigm at all\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n
Soon after, Johnson and his colleagues secured the Australian Research Council Linkage grant. The project, commencing in 2011 and spanning four years, featured three key stages. Initially, particular varieties of sorghum \u2013 white, brown and red coloured grains were screened to test their starch digestibility and antioxidant levels. Then using selected grains, sorghum-based flaked breakfast cereals were developed at Santiarium and lab-tested for their antioxidant capacity and digestibility.<\/p>\n
The final stages of the project involved human trials conducted at the University of Wollongong using four different kinds of Sanitarium Weetbix \u2013 wheat, and white, brown and red sorghum varieties. Referred to as \u2018post-meal trials\u2019 this stage involved monitoring appetite, antioxidant capacity of the blood serum and blood glucose levels for glycaemic index \u2013 all of which are protective against chronic disease \u2013 over a two or three-hour period. A similar study was also conducted in collaboration with Deakin University but used pasta instead of cereal, enriched with the same sorghum flours.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur results surprisingly showed that red sorghum, but not white or brown, had high appetite suppression \u2013 they actually changed the appetite hormones in participants \u2013 and raised the antioxidant protection markers in the blood. The red sorghum products were also considered to be palatable\u201d, Johnson explains.<\/p>\n
The research project informed the development of the first ever staple food made entirely from sorghum, Sanitarium\u2019s gluten-free Weetbix containing high levels of antioxidants, and has laid the foundation for the creation of more sorghum-based products that promote healthy eating, particularly for those at risk of developing diabetes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s sort of the model I work on: \u2018human nutrition informed agriculture\u2019. We\u2019re trying to loop back into the agriculture and the plant breeding specifically for the future needs of different populations rather than it all being driven by the agriculture \u2013 around yields\u201d, Johnson says.<\/p>\n
A \u2018Plan B\u2019 grain as temperatures rise<\/h3>\n
Sorghum\u2019s drought resistance and ability to thrive in high temperatures makes it an alternative to other grains in the future. Sorghum plants\u2019 metabolism and production actually increase in temperatures up to 40 degrees and during times of drought it can stop growing and wait rather than simply dying off.<\/p>\n
Already a common staple food in Africa, it\u2019s often the only crop grown in certain areas across the continent in the warmer months. Many traditional recipes which involve sprouting and fermenting sorghum have been developed as passed down through generations.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy interest is to understand how we can leverage traditional knowledge to develop commercially viable processes to make sorghum a staple grain in the future, globally, because we may need this \u2018plan b grain\u2019 if climate variability is so great that other crops start failing, which actually happened in Queensland, in the wheatbelt, about ten years ago\u201d, says Johnson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Associate Professor Stuart Johnson has discovered that a grain used mainly in animal feed in Australia contains properties that may have the potential to help combat type 2 diabetes mellitus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4266,"featured_media":6093,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"8362,8034,4995,8154,5813,6621","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":79,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-6092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":[{"title":"","qualification":"","link":"","description":"","faculty":""}],"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}},"post_components":false},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Stuart-Johnson-Sorghum-article-fieldwork-image-edit-WP.jpg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Nik","last_name":"Malane","display_name":"Nik Malane"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 14:45:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4266"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6092"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=6092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}