Dietary fibre and diabetes.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to K W Heaton.
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Ten healthy middle-aged women volunteered for a study to test the effect of lactulose--a synthetic, non-absorbable disaccharide--on the colonic metabolism of bile acids and on bile lipid composition. Lactulose (60 g daily in eight cases, 39 g daily in two) was taken as a proprietary syrup for six weeks, and bile was collected by duodenal intubation before and immediately after six weeks. All subjects showed a fall in the percentage of the 7-alpha-dehydroxylated bile acid deoxycholic acid (mean 28.4 +/- SEM 3.7 to 15.6 +/- 2.4; p less than 0.002) and a rise in the percentage of the primary bile acid chenodeoxycholic acid (mean 33.2 +/- 42.9 +/- 2.9; p less than 0.001). The percentage of cholic acid rose in eight subjects but mean values did not differ significantly. Bile was initially super-saturated with cholesterol in most subjects and became less saturated with cholesterol in all but one (mean saturation index 1.40 +/- 0.11 to 1.19 +/- 0.07; p less these 0.005). These data support the theory colonic bacteria contribute to cholesterol gall-stone formation.
Healthy volunteers ingested sugar-equivalent meals of oranges and orange juice and of grapes and grape juice. Satiety, assessed by two subjective scoring systems, was greater after whole fruit than after juice and the return of appetite was delayed. With oranges, as previously reported with apples, there was a significantly smaller insulin response to fruit than to juice and less postabsorptive fall in plasma glucose. With grapes, the insulin response to the whole fruit was, paradoxically, more than that to the juice, while postabsorptive glucose values were similar. The glucose in grapes appeared to be more insulinogenic than that in oranges and apples. Conversely, grape juice evoked less insulin than expected, possibly because its high osmolality delayed gastric emptying. However, diluting it did not increase its insulinogenicity. The plasma insulin and glucose responses to fruit appear to depend on the fiber as well as the glucose content of the fruit.
Sixteen diabetics were studied over six-week periods on two diets--a conventional carbohydrate-restricted diet and a diet which excluded all refined (fibre-depleted) carbohydrate but which allowed unrefined (fibre-intact) carbohydrate freely. On the latter, there was a substantial increase in dietary fibre intake. Despite this, there was no change in 24-h urinary excretion of glucose nor in blood glycosylated haemoglobin concentration, and there was only a modest improvement in post-prandial plasma glucose concentration. We suggest that simply switching from refined to unrefined cereal foods without increasing total carbohydrate intake is unlikely to produce much improvement in diabetic control.
The dietary intake of 16 well-established diabetics was recorded over six-week periods on two different diets--a conventional, carbohydrate-controlled diet and an unrestricted, carbohydrate diet which allowed free choice as to quantity of food eaten and time of meals. In all patients the carbohydrate intake varied considerably from day to day and the variation was as great on the supposedly controlled carbohydrate diet as on the unrestricted diet. In agreement with other studies, carbohydrate intake was often considerably higher on the usual diabetic diet than had been recommended or than the patient believed they were taking. It is suggested that present methods for controlling the carbohydrate intake of diabetics are ineffective and, in particular, do not ensure a regular intake from day to day.
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Cholesterol in bile has been estimated using two variants of the cholesterol oxidase method and compared with gas-liquid chromatographic (GLC) assay. As published, the enzymatic method seriously underestimated biliary cholesterol. This was due to interference by other constituents of bile, particularly bilirubin and lecithin. However, by dilution of reagents and samples in water and isopropanol respectively a close correlation with the GLC method is achieved. It is concluded that the cholesterol oxidase method as published is unsuitable for the estimation of cholesterol in bile, but in modified form it is simple, accurate and economical.
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Gallbladder bile was aspirated from the duodenum in nine healthy women after three separate periods of fasting after a standardised meal. Mean cholesterol saturation index was significantly greater after a 15 hour fast (1.35 +/- 0.08) than after a 10 hour fast (1.05 +/- 0.10). However, after 20 hours of fasting, mean cholesterol saturation index had fallen to 1.13 +/- 0.10. Total biliary lipid concentration was unaffected. These findings suggest that fasting has a series of effects on gallbladder bile and that bile sampling should be carried out at at standardised period of time after the last meal.
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Symptoms of functional gastrointestinal disorder were sought by a questionnaire administered to 301 apparently healthy subjects in young, middle-aged, and elderly categories. Abdominal pain, a feeling of incomplete evaculation after defecation, urgency, scybala, runny stools, straining at stool, borborygmi, distension, heartburn, and laxative use were all very common. The typical symptom pattern of the spastic irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) occurred in 13.6% of subjects. Seven percent suffered noncolonic pain that was commonly associated with heartburn. A further 3.7% had painless diarrhea without the features of the spastic IBS. Six percent suffered painless constipation. Constipation seemed to increase with age. Thus four clinically distinct functional bowel syndromes existed in almost one-third of the subjects studied. Most of these had not consulted a doctor. Hospital-based studies of the IBS derive from a selected minority of patients and may not be applicable to all sufferers.
Thirty newly diagnosed patients with Crohn's disease were interviewed about their habitual, pre-illness diet and compared with 30 healthy controls, matched for age, sex, social class, and marital status. The patients ate substantially more refined sugar, slightly less dietary fibre, and considerably less raw fruit and vegetables than the controls. A diet high in refined sugar and low in raw fruit and vegetables precedes and may favour the development of Crohn's disease.
Thirty-two patients with Crohn's disease were treated with a fibre-rich, unrefined-carbohydrate diet in addition to conventional management and followed for a mean of four years and four months. Their clinical course was compared retrospectively with that of 32 matched patients who had received no dietary instruction. Hospital admissions were significantly fewer and shorter in the diet-treated patients, who spent a total of 111 days in hospital compared with 533 days in the non-diet-treated control group. Whereas five of the controls required intestinal operation, only one diet-treated patient needed surgery. This is in strong contrast to general experience with this disease. Treatment with a fibre-rich, unrefined-carbohydrate diet appears to have a favourable effect on the course of Crohn's disease and does not lead to intestinal obstruction.
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The disappearance of intravenously administered cholylglycine-14C was studied in the fasting and postprandial states in seven subjects with healthy livers and 10 patients with liver disease. In neither group was there any significant difference in the pattern of 14C disappearance. In another 10 patients with liver disease there was no significant change when a loading dose of cholylglycine was given orally two hours beforehand. Clearance of bile acids seems to be unimpaired in all except severe liver disease. The apparent deterioration in endogenous bile acid removal after meals may be due simply to the increased amount of bile acids which are in circulation and available for portosystemic shunting.