KEY INTERVIEW: New Health Platforms for Prebiotics

02 Jul 2015 --- The health benefits of dietary fibers have been talked about for some time, but less is known about the role prebiotic fibers can play in our diets. Here, Professor Raylene Reimer from the University of Calgary, uses her expertise in the area of digestive health to shed more light on this subject.

We know that soluble fibers offer a range of health benefits, such as the ability to lower blood sugar levels or reduce cholesterol. Within this, some soluble fibers can be classed as prebiotic fibers. But what additional health benefits can they offer?

Prebiotic fibers: Key health benefits:
“For me there are two interesting metabolic benefits of prebiotic fibers,” explains Reimer.
“We now have evidence from a recently published meta-analysis, which is a form of analysis that allows researchers to combine findings from any independent studies that supports improvement in blood sugar levels. From the meta-analysis we know that there have been sufficient well-controlled studies looking at postprandial glycaemia to conclude that prebiotic actually lowers blood glucose.”
Prebiotics do not drastically reduce body weight, she explains, but the additional metabolic benefits, such as the glucose lowering, are important for an individual’s overall health.
“For me this is the most exciting thing,” she says. “I think that this is a really key metabolic benefit for the prebiotic fibers and it goes over and above what we have seen for quite some time with increased satiety, which was one of the first outcomes that was really robustly shown with the prebiotics.” 
Reimer explains that the second metabolic benefit of prebiotics is its ability to influence inflammation.
“Although there is more work to be done to look specifically at inflammation and some of the inflammatory markers, like cytokines and endotoxin in the blood, there may be a role for prebiotics in reducing inflammation as well.”
In this context Reimer is referring to low grade inflammation that we see in obesity and type 2 diabetes. 
“It’s chronic and it’s at a low level, so it’s not the same as inflammation when the body is mounting up a defence against an infection. It is persistent and it has been linked to causing insulin resistance which precedes and predicts development of type 2 diabetes.”
She says there are markers that can be looked at in the blood to determine if a person has this low level of chronic inflammation going on in the body and from there it can be determined whether prebiotics can reduce the inflammation.

Healthy nutrition
Reimer explains that she believes healthy nutrition is a vital element towards the treatment of obesity and diabetes, and prebiotic fibers have a key role to play within this. 
“We know that the most highly effective treatment currently, which is surgical intervention, is not going to be available to a very large segment of the obese population worldwide, even in Western countries, as there are real limits to the number of surgeries performed each year,” she says. 
She notes also that there are very few pharmacological agents and medications that can address obesity, partly because many of these have negative side effects. This makes dietary intervention even more important. 
“I think diet is a key strategy and prebiotic fibers, particularly the chicory root fibers where we have considerable evidence for the prebiotic effects, are a key strategy, particularly because they are very easy to incorporate into products,” she says. “I think incorporation into food products is one way to get wider distribution to the population, but it is also very easy to take as a supplement and being highly water soluble, beverages are a convenient and easy delivery vehicle. 

Weight management
Weight gain through adulthood is a natural progression in humans, Reimer explains, but it can predispose people to metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. 
“If we can have a means through which to stop weight gain, I think that is a stronger public health message than to continually tell people who have become overweight or obese that they need to lose weight. Research has clearly shown that weight loss can benefit health; even with a 5% weight loss there are lots of metabolic benefits.”

Consumer research
Professor Raylene Reimer recently spoke at the 33rd International Symposium on Diabetes and Nutrition in Toronto. She was interviewed there by one of the event sponsors, Beneo, on this subject. 
Earlier this year, Beneo commissioned research which showed that consumers intrinsically link fiber with digestive health and that they prefer fiber that has been derived from a natural source, such as chicory root. 
“This preference for natural ingredients was also reflected in terms of ingredients’ names: ‘chicory root extract’ outperformed other fiber names, such as maltodexin and polydextrose with respondents, in terms of sounding healthier, safer and recognisable,” a spokesman says. 

By Sonya Hook