Ingesting Microwave-Cooked Starch Could Tailor the Intestinal Microbiota and Glucose/Lipid Level of Mice Fed with Low-Fat Diet

Abstract

While the microwave technique is widely used in the heating of starch-based food matrices, it is still unclear how ingesting microwave-cooked starch (containing resistant starch (RS)/slowly digestible starch (SDS)) regulates the intestinal microbiota and glucose/lipid levels of the body. Here, it was revealed that microwave cooking could strengthen the ordered structures of starch following storage (using conventional cooking as a reference) and thus led to a high SDS + RS content (72.90%). Compared to a normal diet, ingesting the diet with microwave-treated starch significantly decreased the body weight, blood glucose level, fat index, adipocyte size, and LDL-C content of mice. This could be related to the improved abundance and diversity of the intestinal microbiota in mice. In particular, there were a reduction in Firmicutes abundance (20.92%), being significantly correlated with the lowered levels of above glucose/lipid indicators, and an increase in Bacteroidota abundance (4.46 times), being linked to the reduced contents of primary and secondary bile acids.

Effect of microwave‐assisted treatment on proximate, techno‐functional, thermal, structural, and storage properties of TGN (Cyperus esculentus L.) flour

“…59 Microwave modification of starch granules represents functional components in health-centric diets with a low glycemic index and also serves as an alternative to dietary fats, while the impact on the protein agglomeration presents a potential utilization of the flour as emulsifier in food formulation. 44,60 Similar observation from studies with microwave-treated corn and quinoa flour aligns with the present study. 32,61 Further to this, the particle-size analysis in Table 3 shows that an increase in microwave treatment significantly (P < 0.05) increased the size profiles of D 10 , D 50 , and D 90 in comparison with their control samples, respectively.…”