Digestibility of carbohydrates from rice-, oat- and wheat-based ready-to-eat breakfast cereals in children
Brighenti, F.; Casiraghi, M.C.; Ciappellano, S.; Crovetti, R.; Testolin, G.
European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 48(9): 617-624
1994
ISSN/ISBN: 0954-3007 PMID: 8001518 Document Number: 436810
Objective: To study the effect of the presence and quality of dietary fibre in ready-to-eat (RTE) breakfast cereals on completeness of carbohydrate digestion in children and on starch susceptibility to alpha-amylase in vitro. Design: A controlled intervention study. Subjects: Eight 3-8-year-old healthy children. Interventions: Completeness of digestion was evaluated by assessing the amount of carbohydrates apparently fermented into the colon using the breath-H-2 technique after consumption in random order, of five breakfast tests containing boiled rice (either alone or supplemented with 3 g of lactulose) as reference food, or RTE cereals based on rice (low-fibre), wheat (high insoluble fibre) and oats (high-soluble fibre). The potential glycaemic impact of the products was estimated in vitro by assessing starch susceptibility to alpha-amylolysis using an enzymatic-dialysis method. Results: Compared to boiled rice and to rice-based RTE cereal, wheat- and oat-based RTE cereals both significantly (P lt 0.05) increased the amount of apparently fermented carbohydrates (+ 1.1 +- 1.7% of total breakfast carbohydrate fermented for rice, +5.6 +- 0.9% for wheat and +9.4 +- 3.7% for oats; mean +- SEM), calculated using the excess H-2 in breath after lactulose as standard. All products showed similar in vitro digestibility, resulting in estimated glycaemic indexes of 117.5 (24.0) for rice, and 105.7 (14.1) for oats-based, 128.4 (17.6) for wheat-based, and 129.8 (16.6) (mean 95% CI)) for rice-based RTE cereals. Conclusions: Results suggest that the presence of fibre in RTE breakfast cereals, in particular soluble fibre, increases colonic fermentation in children whereas it seems not to affect glucose availability.