Cases of obesity and related diseases are increasing every year. Energy control such as a balanced diet with exercises has been suggested to be a solution to obesity. Prebiotics such as dietary fibers are beneficial to the digestion because they lower the energy density of the food products and serve as nutrients for the gut flora. An in vitro model has been established to assess the short chain fatty acid production from a variety of prebiotics. The model is an anerobic fermentation where the substrate of interest is predigested with pepsin and pancreatine, washed and dried prior to inoculation with pooled human fecal bacteria.  The pre-digestion allowed a better access of the dietary fibers by the gut flora. Subjects consuming a diet with resistant starch were compared to a more typical American diet the short chain fatty acid production was remarkably different. The high resistant starch pooled sample produced high levels of butyrate whereas the unexposed group produced little butyrate regardless of prebiotic tested. Testing individual samples showed significant differences in rate of distribution of short chain fatty acid production.  The results suggest that changes in the microbiome and subsequent fatty acid production can be modified by prolonged exposure to probiotics.

Colonic fermentation of prebiotics are influenced by diet

245th National Meeting (2013)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.