SATIN: Satiety Innovation. Study 2- University of Aberdeen

Previous research has suggested that food structure and food composition has a role to play in controlling consumption. Low-energy, high-fibre diets provide physical bulk in the gastro-intestinal tract to sustain fullness in a way that low-volume, energy-dense foods cannot. However, studies shown low long term acceptability be probably associated to its poor palatability. Taste and hedonic experience remain the main drivers of consumer choice, and the immediate sensory aspect of food products such as palatability to have greater salience to consumers than their health promoting properties.

Changing the properties of foods merely by changing oro-sensory properties and through the delay of gastric emptying deals with mechanisms critical to within-meal satiation and early post meal satiety and may produce only transient suppression of hunger unless regularly consumed and represent benefits in delivering nutritional stimuli to key parts of the gastro-intestinal tract. The potential to manufacture change can make food structure variety now seem near limitless due the numerous advances in food technology.

Several recent reports have associated satiety effects with fermentable fibre sources in human dietary studies. Apparently, the large intestine microbiota recovers 'extra' calories from the diet and might contributes to obesity. However, the different mechanisms involved in lean and obese subjects are not completely resolved. Recent evidence in experimental animal designs indicates that changes in gut microbiota composition may be associated with increased food intake and obesity suggesting that satiety and intake are influenced by the species composition of the gut microbiota.

This short-term human nutrition study comprises in a randomised, cross-over design testing either two potentially satiety product, Arabinoxylan (A) or Beta-glucan (B) against an equivalent amount of heterogeneous natural fibre (Control) in 40 healthy-obese volunteers, aged 18-65 years old, BMI between 27 and 42Kg/m2 from both genders after an initial maintenance diet in free- living conditions.

Dietary intake, body weight, blood pressure would be monitored through the study. Faecal, urine and blood samples will be collected to monitor, glucose, insulin, gut peptides and assess metabolites of dietary and microbial origin. Orocecal Transit Time (OCTT), carbohydrate fermentability and methanogen status will be estimated using a breath test and transit time will be determined using SmartPill™.