Beneficial Effect of Intestinal Fermentation of Natural Polysaccharides

Abstract

With the rapid development of modern society, many chronic diseases are increasing including diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, etc., which further cause an increased death rate worldwide. A high caloric diet with reduced natural polysaccharides, typically indigestible polysaccharides, is considered a health risk factor. With solid evidence accumulating that indigestible polysaccharides can effectively prevent and/or ameliorate symptoms of many chronic diseases, we give a narrative review of many natural polysaccharides extracted from various food resources which mainly contribute their health beneficial functions via intestinal fermentation.

Dietary solutions to dyslipidemia: Milk protein–polysaccharide conjugates as liver biochemical enhancers

“…These results are in line with those obtained by Kalyan et al () as they reported that the MPs significantly lowered plasma and liver cholesterol and TAGs. In a similar mechanism as the Colocasia esculenta 's and the Abelmoschus esculentus ' mucilage (Chukwuma, Islam, & Amonsou, ) Cymodocea nodosa 's mucilage (Zhang, Yang, Liang, Jiao, & Zhao, ) and related Ziziphus mauritana (Deshpande et al, ) and Ziziphus jujuba 's mucilage (Ganachari, Kumar, & Alagawadi, ), Nabq mucilage (Table ) diminished lipid absorption at the intestinal level by inhibiting the activity of pancreatic lipase (Elbashir et al, ), scoring as the second best inhibitor among 18 dietetic plants. Dechakhamphu and Wongchum (), as Tan et al () went deeper to arraign plant phenolics (within identical mucilages) as potent inhibitors of carbohydrate digesting enzymes, namely phenolic acids like ferulic acid (and other phenolic acids like p‐coumarin, p‐hydroxybenzoic acid, and syringic acid or phenolic esters like chlorogenic acid); Ghafoor, Qadir, and Fakhri () found ferulic acid in the NabM as well as phenolic compounds like rutin, apigenin, and quercetin.…”

Valuable Food Molecules with Potential Benefits for Human Health

“…Therefore, an overview of the main polysaccharides, including their potential food and medical applications, is presented in Table 2. Depending on the single sugar moieties (glucose, galactose, fructose, mannose), polysaccharides are classified in two groups: (1) homo-polysaccharides, which contain only one kind of polymerized sugar unit like starch, xylan, galactan, and froctan, and (2) heteropolysaccharides, containing two or more kinds of sugar units such as pectin [186]. Polysaccharides, in many forms, play a central role in all living organisms for supply and storage of energy and/or structural integrity and protection of cells.…”

“…Many foods contain a great number of polysaccharides that cannot be completely digested by the digestive system. These indigestible polysaccharides can be called dietary fibers [186]. The class of polysaccharides such as pectin, inulin, and gums are able to slow the food movement in the digestive tract and to slow the sugar absorption from food into blood.…”

“…Intestinal microbiota degrades the polysaccharides to produce metabolites and many intestinal bacteria can use these polysaccharides as unique carbon sources during the fermentation process. An in vitro study, which simulated the human colonic fermentation and used two types of indigestible polysaccharides (apple pectin and inulin) as energy sources to three different human bowel microorganisms, showed that the low degree of polymerized inulin positively modulated the intestinal microbiota and improved the flora diversity [186]. However, pectin may also treat or prevent several diseases/disorders such as intestinal infections, atherosclerosis, cancer, and obesity.…”

“…Non-starch polysaccharides such as pectin, cellulose, hemicellulose, β-glucan, pentosane, and xylan are selected targets to reduce the incidence of inflammatory bowel disease, due to the resistance to hydrolyzation by endogenous digestive enzymes of human [192]. The inflammatory symptoms were decreased after the oral administrations of a guar gum or partially hydrolyzed guar gum mixture, a pectin-type polysaccharide; also, the bowel movement, stool consistency, the abdominal pain and diarrhea were improved [186,193].…”