The Alberta FYBER (Feed Your Gut Bacteria morE fibeR) Study

Summary

Too much body-fat has been linked to a low-grade inflammation throughout the body. This inflammation is thought to then cause different diseases, like heart disease and diabetes. A lower amount of inflammation is usually seen in people that follow a high fiber diet. A reason for this is the microbes that live in our gut. Fiber is a main food source for these microbes. This allows fiber to actually change the type of microbes that live in our gut. Also, when fiber gets fermented by these microbes, health-promoting waste products get released. We aim to determine how exactly our gut microbes contribute to the health properties of fiber.

We hypothesize that fiber's health properties depend on how the gut microbes respond to the fiber. To test this, we plan to add three different fibers to the diets of healthy overweight and obese individuals for six weeks. We then will determine how the different fibers affect an individuals' health by looking at how established markers of health change from adding the fiber. Following this, we will see how an individual's gut microbes respond to the added fiber. The response will be decided by looking at changes to the microbe community, as well as their ability to ferment the fibers. By connecting health outcomes to the gut microbes' response, we can test if the gut microbes' response to the fiber determines the fiber's ability to effect health. If we can understand how our gut microbes respond to different fibers and the importance of that response. Then we could personalize diets to have a greater impact on improving health.

Conditions

• Overweight and Obesity

Interventions

OTHER

Microcrystalline Cellulose Supplementation

Fifty overweight and mildly obese subjects will supplement their normal dietary intake with a significant yet tolerable amount of MCC (Females: 25 g; Males: 35 g) daily for six consecutive weeks.

OTHER

Acacia Gum Supplementation

Seventy five overweight and mildly obese subjects will supplement their normal dietary intake with a significant yet tolerable amount of AG (Females: 25 g; Males: 35 g) daily for six consecutive weeks.

OTHER

Resistant Starch Type 4 Supplementation

Seventy five overweight and mildly obese subjects will supplement their normal dietary intake with a significant yet tolerable amount of RS4 (Females: 25 g; Males: 35 g) daily for six consecutive weeks.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Alberta

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Jens Walter, PhD · University of Alberta

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

19 Years

Max Age

50 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2015-08-31

Primary Completion

2020-04-30

Completion

2020-04-30

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations