Curr Opin Lipidol  2002 Feb;13(1):61-7

Prebiotics and lipid metabolism.

Delzenne NM, Williams CM.

aUCL-Universite Catholique de Louvain, School of Pharmacy, Brussels, Belgium,

and bHugh Sinclair Unit of Human Nutrition, School of Food Biosciences, The

University of Reading, Reading, UK.


Prebiotics are defined as nondigestible food ingredients that beneficially

affect the host by selectively stimulating the growth or the activity of one or

a limited number of bacteria (bifidobacteria, lactobacilli) in the colon.

Dietary fructans are nutritionally interesting oligosaccharides that strictly

conform to the definition of prebiotics and (in view of experimental studies in

animals and of less numerous studies in humans) exhibit interesting serum or

hepatic lipid lowering properties. Other nondigestible/fermentable nutrients,

which also modulate intestinal flora activity, exhibit cholesterol or

triglyceride lowering effects. Are changes in intestinal bacterial flora

composition or fermentation activity responsible for those effects? What is the

future of prebiotics in the nutritional control of lipidaemia and cardiovascular

disease risk in humans? Those questions only receive partial response in the

present review because studies of the systemic effects of prebiotics are still

in their infancy, and require fundamental research devoted to elucidating the

biochemical and physiological events that allow prebiotics to exert systemic

effects on lipid metabolism.



PMID: 11790964 [PubMed - in process]