Weight-loss Power Of Oats Naturally Mimics Popular Obesity Drugs

In this latest study, the researchers allocated mice into five groups to all be fed high-fat, high-sucrose diets (HFD). Each group's diet also consisted of either 10% cellulose (control), pectin, beta-glucan, wheat dextrin or resistant starch. Health markers were measured over 18 weeks, assessing percentages of weight gain, fat mass and lean mass. They also looked at the effect of the diets on blood glucose levels after eating, up to two hours after consumption.

The researchers found that the animals on the 10% beta-glucan diets had significantly less weight gain despite their high-fat, high-sugar diet, as well as significantly less fat mass yet significantly higher retention of lean mass. These mice also demonstrated sustained energy expenditure, measured by their movements over 24-hour periods.

The beta-glucan cohort were also the only group to show improved insulin sensitivity and beneficial blood-sugar levels throughout the 18 weeks.

Further analysis indicated that the animals on the beta-glucan-supplemented diets had developed the kind of microbiota that set them up for all of these positive health outcomes, altering the gut's bacteria and the molecules produced through digestion.

These molecules, known as metabolites, are thought to be the key piece of the puzzle when it comes to how fiber encourages weight loss.

The researchers found that one metabolite, butyrate, was the driver of this effect. Butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) produced by certain gut bacteria in the fiber fermentation process, stimulates the release of GLP-1, which we've come to understand plays such an important role in communicating to the brain that feeling of 'fullness' when we eat. Semaglutide drugs like Ozempic synthetically create this gut-brain scenario, though in a more potent way that doesn't face the same kind of rapid deterioration as when it occurs naturally.

"Only β-glucan (beta-glucan) supplementation during HFD-feeding decreased adiposity and body weight gain and improved glucose tolerance compared with HFD-cellulose, whereas all other fibers had no effect," the researchers noted. "This was associated with increased energy expenditure and locomotor activity in mice compared with HFD-cellulose. All fibers supplemented into an HFD uniquely shifted the intestinal microbiota and cecal short-chain fatty acids; however, only β-glucan supplementation increased cecal butyrate concentrations."