Cereal-based food products have been the basis of the human diet for a long time. Cereals typically contribute about 50% of dietary fiber intake in western countries. Increased whole-grain consumption has been inversely associated with the risk for developing some diet-related disorders, such as cancer, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases. Although most of the human studies show an inverse correlation between cereal bran consumption and the development of chronic diseases, the active components and the underlying mechanisms by which cereal bran contribute to health benefits remain largely unknown. Most of the previous studies simply consider cereal bran as just fiber and ignore the role of the bioactive phytochemicals in cereal bran. Wheat is the most heavily consumed grain in the US. Besides glycerides and free fatty acids, wheat bran (WB) contains many different bioactive phytochemicals. We and others have found that phytochemicals play crucial roles to the biological effect of whole-grain wheat. In our ongoing study to establish the chemical profile of WB and identify the bioactive phytochemicals for cancer prevention, we purified the major phytochemicals in WB including alk(en)ylresorcinols (ARs), sphingolipids, sterols and sterol ferulates and identified ARs as the major bioactive phytochemicals in WB for colon cancer prevention using bioassay guided purification.

Chemistry behind the biological effect of whole-grain wheat

248th National Meeting (2014)

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