The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of the fibre content of the bread and the effect of the state of graining on the postprandial blood glucose response in insulin-dependent and non-insulin-dependent diabetics. The breads were white wheat bread, mixed wholemeal wheat/rye bread, wholemeal rye bread and grained wholemeal rye bread. Finnish wholemeal rye bread induced a slower postprandial blood glucose response than the mixed wholemeal (wheat/rye) bread (P less than or equal to 0.05) and the white wheat bread (P less than or equal to 0.01). Grained wholemeal rye bread resulted in a similar blood glucose response to that from wholemeal rye bread.