Are there any new strategies for weight management?
For many different reasons, almost everyone has been concerned about their weight. Nowadays, we all want to find new effective approaches to control our weight in a healthy, sustainable, and easy manner. Could arabinoxylans be the answer we have been looking for?
How relevant is weight management?
Weight is a common worry for a large part of society. Whether it is driven by aesthetic preferences or health considerations, almost everyone has thought about losing some weight. Body image and the beauty standard that is established in the Western culture plays an important role and pressures many to lose weight (1).
However, there is a growing number of people interested in improving their health and quality of life: not only they want to be healthy, but they also want to feel healthy (2). As a result, there is a growing interest in holistic solutions that people can seamlessly integrate into their lifestyle without uncomfortable restrictions .
How to lose weight?
While it’s true that weight loss ultimately comes down to burning more calories than you consume, many traditional diets and exercise programs are designed as short-term solutions that are difficult to sustain in the long run. However, new alternatives are emerging. For example:
- Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern where the individual restricts all the calories that has to eat in a day to a few hours of eat and fasts for the rest of the day (3). Although some studies have shown this helps control weight, evidence is not strong enough (4). This pattern has to be adapted in the long term for it to work, but it is not manageable to many people.
- A high protein diet can help with weight management as protein digestion delays the hunger sensation. But for a diet to be consider high in protein (5), about 1.2 g/kg of body weight have to be consumed. In a normal diet, people consume less than 0.8 g/kg of body weight a day. Increasing the protein intake and sustaining it over time can be tricky for some people (6). In addition, people with certain health concerns such as kidney issues are not recommended to follow these diets.
A new emerging strategy for weight management
Arabinoxylans are dietary fibres found in the cell walls of plants, such as grains like wheat (7). As many dietary fibres, arabinoxylans are polysaccharides that help with gut health. They act as prebiotics, food components that are not absorbed by the intestine, but rather support digestion and the health of the gut microbiome.
Research shows that arabinoxylans have the ability to regulate the postprandial (after-meal) glucose response (8). By controlling spikes in blood glucose levels, they can help regulate appetite. A more controlled glucose response is associated with a lower appetite, which usually translates in a decrease in calorie intake (9), an essential factor for weight loss and maintenance.
What is the clinical evidence – can arabinoxylans help in weight management?
A recent study (10, 11) with such arabinoxylans – Reducal® suggests that arabinoxylans could be a great ally for weight loss management. Participants who consumed arabinoxylans had a significant decrease in their calorie consumption, meanwhile their self-reported appetite did not decrease.
It is believed that the increase in beneficial bacteria, such as Bifidobacterium and Propionibacterium, led to an increase in production of short-chain fatty acids (SCAFs). Additionally, there was also an increase in acetate, which can have an effect on appetite independently, explaining the study’s results.
Including arabinoxylans in strategies for weight loss could be more approachable for a certain type of consumers that struggle to change their eating habits. This approach would not require a complete change of their routine, adding products enriched with arabinoxylans to their diet could make a significant difference.
Conclusion
Whether it is for health concerns or aesthetic reasons, weight management is in the mind of many people. Our society wants to be and to feel healthy. Weight loss can be difficult to many people and most strategies are not sustainable in the long term. Adding arabinoxylans to the diet has proven to be an innovative and approachable solution that can be adopted by many people.
