The majority of the world’s population derives more than 90% of its calories from starch mainly obtained from cereals including wheat which is nutritionally poor lacking essential nutrients. This starch when consumed is readily digested to glucose leading to a rapid increase in glycaemic index (GI). This rapid increase in GI on daily basis can render an individual susceptible to type-2 diabetes. At present millions of people in the world are suffering from type-2 diabetes. Although, type-2 diabetes is influenced by many factors, however, significant contributors are a type of food and lifestyle. Thus increased uptake of high starch food is considered a major cause of type-2 diabetes in the world. Therefore, the recent trend in wheat breeding is the development of those genotypes which are high in resistant starch (RS) with more available nutrients.

RS is not digested by the α-amylases of the human digestive tract. This undigested starch in the large intestine is utilized by the inhabitant microbiota leading to the production of many useful bio-molecules including short-chain fatty acids (SCFA). The production of SCFA has many health benefits. Use of RS results in the production of less glucose and ultimately fewer calories. Therefore, blood sugar level does not increase rapidly. Thus increased RS uptake in daily food can significantly help in preventing colon cancer, and early occurrence of type-2 diabetes and also improves cardiovascular health. If high RS is coupled with increased available nutrients in grain it can improve the nutritional quality of grain significantly. In this study, a wide range of wheat genotypes were used for the estimation of RS content. Then the selected genotypes were screened for the accumulation of grain nutrient content and the underlying mechanism using a diverse set of physiological, molecular, and biochemical approaches. It was determined that with the increase in RS content the accumulation of other micro nutrients increased. The genetic analysis of enzymes involved in nutrient accumulation did not show significant differences among different genotypes however, the concentration of different nutrients was considerably increased which could be due to the less accumulation of starch. This indicates that nutrient accumulation is maybe not dependent on starch accumulation. Wheat genotypes exhibit great genetic diversity for high RS and nutrients accumulation in grain. However, the RS accumulation in grain is independent of nutrient accumulation up to some extent.