Carbs may suppress fat absorption and accumulation: Animal data

Dietary fructooligosaccharides – carbohydrates with established prebiotic activity – may suppress high-fat diet-induced body fat accumulation, and inhibit intestinal absorption of dietary fats, say researchers.

Writing in the journal BioFactors, researchers investigated the effects of fructooligosaccharides (FOS) on the development of obesity, using two experiments in rats and mice. They found that body weight and percent body fat were lower in mice fed FOS than in controls, whilst rats receiving an oral dose of FOS were reported to have suppressed elevation of plasma triglycerides.

“We have shown that a low dose of dietary FOS suppressed weight gain, accumulation of visceral adipose [fat] tissue, and the increase in liver triglycerides resulting from feeding a high-fat ‘western’ diet ... while fat excretion increased,” reported the authors, led by Yuko Nakamura from the Food and Health R&D Laboratories at the Japanese pharmaceutical company Meiji Seika Kaisha.

“These results suggest that FOS may prevent fat accumulation by inhibiting intestinal absorption of dietary fat in a high-fat ‘western’ diet,” added the researchers...