International Food Symposium on Health benefits of Foods

Overweight, obesity and lifestyle diseases are major public health concerns worldwide. The global prevalence of obesity has nearly doubled between 1980 and 2008 (1,2), mean BMI increased per decade by 0.4 kg/m2 for men and 0.5 kg/m2 for women. In 2008, it was estimated that in average 1.46 billion adults worldwide had a BMI of 25 kg/m2 or greater.

Interventions and policies that can impact positively these figures are needed in most countries. Nutritional policies have raised tracks for solutions among which dietary habits and nutrients intakes recommendations play a key role.

45 to 60% of the total energy intake (3) should come from carbohydrates, in combination with reduced intake of fat, and a daily dietary fibre intake of 25 g/day would be also recommended in line with WHO/FAO’s recommendations (4). Actually fibre consumption in European Union is generally not sufficient (around 17 g/day in France) and food industry is confronted with the challenge of changing this trend by developing solutions that might help consumers to reach the above indicated goals.

Consumers might be health-conscious but also often looking for added benefits to reward their efforts of will. Some dietary fibre supplements were therefore developed to bring “ready to use” fibers to the consumers, while taking into account the types of population that might be concerned about it. Nomadic fibre supplements, transportable in the bag, could be useful to complete rushed meals of healthy working people, living a rapid type of contemporary life, and concerned about maintaining a “normal BMI” and a healthy way of life. Furthermore, already overweight people being on a diet might find some interest in using a supplement easy to add to their meals while reducing hunger feelings and favouring weight control.

As NUTRIOSE®, a resistant dextrin, has shown its benefits in such contexts (5,6), we present here the developmental approach leading to two types of “sticks” respectively adapted to the above described circumstances. We firstly developed a process leading to a unique type of dextrin offering outstanding technological qualities in terms of stability towards industrial food processes and structural specificities in terms of digestibility. Then we followed a relevant step-by-step methodology, including the scientific demonstration of the sought-after nutritional benefits. In this way, we were in particular able to demonstrate that 17 g/day NUTRIOSE® added twice daily to a fruit drink for 12 weeks had positive impacts on hunger feelings and weight management. Then we demonstrated a dose-related positive impact on some satiety-related and anthropometric parameters, being effective in the modulation of satiety from 8-14g/d, and in weight management from 14g/d.

This type of scientific approach, methodical and logical, helps producing nutritional ingredients and formulating meals meeting at once the regulation's requirements and the consumer's needs.

BMI: Body Mass Index
WHO: World Health Organization
FAO: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

References

1. Finucane MM, Stevens GA, Cowan MJ, Danaei G, Lin JK, Paciorek CJ, Signh GM, Gutierrez HR, Lu Y, Bahalim AN, Farzadfar F, Riley LM, Ezzati M, on behalf of the Global Burden of Metabolic Risk Factors of Chronic Diseases Collaborating Group (Body Mass Index) National, regional, and global trends in body-mass index since 1980: systematic analysis of health examination surveys and epidemiological studies with 960 country-years and 9·1 million participants. The Lancet, Early Online Publication, 4 February 2011 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(10)62037-5
2. http://ec.europa.eu/health/reports/european
3. EFSA Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition, and Allergies (NDA); Scientific Opinion on Dietary Reference Values for carbohydrates and dietary fibre. EFSA Journal 2010; 8(3):1462 Available online: www.efsa.europa.eu. Last accessed 03/02/2011
4. World Health Organization. Diet, Nutrition and the prevention of chronic diseases. Report of a joint WHO/FAO Expert Consultation. WHO technical Report Series 916, Geneva, 2003.
5. LI S, GUERIN-DEREMAUX L, POCHAT M, WILS D, REIFER C, MILLER LE NUTRIOSE® dietary fibre supplementation improves insulin resistance and determinants of metabolic syndrome in overweight men: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study. Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism, 2010, 35: 773–782
6. GUERIN-DEREMAUX L, LI S, POCHAT M, WILS D, MUBASHER M, REIFER C, MILLER LE Effects of NUTRIOSE® dietary fibre supplementation on body weight, body composition, energy intake, and hunger in overweight men. International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition, 2011 (in press)

top

Download

Nomadic fibres for diet enrichment: a potential preventive tool (239.08 Ko)