F. Brighenti et al., DIGESTIBILITY OF CARBOHYDRATES FROM RICE-BASED, OAT-BASED AND WHEAT-BASED READY-TO-EAT BREAKFAST CEREALS IN CHILDREN, European journal of clinical nutrition, 48(9), 1994, pp. 617-624
Objective: To study the effect of the presence and quality of dietary
fibre in ready-to-eat (RTE) breakfast cereals on completeness of carbo
hydrate digestion in children and on starch susceptibility to alpha-am
ylase in vitro. Design: A controlled intervention study. Subjects: Eig
ht 3-8-year-old healthy children. Interventions: Completeness of diges
tion was evaluated by assessing the amount of carbohydrates apparently
fermented into the colon using the breath-H-2 technique after consump
tion 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: Compare
d to boiled rice and to rice-based RTE cereal, wheat- and oat-based RT
E cereals both significantly (P < 0.05) increased the amount of appare
ntly fermented carbohydrates (+1.1 +/- 1.7% of total breakfast carbohy
drate fermented for rice, +5.6 +/- 0.9% for wheat and +9.4 +/- 3.7% fo
r oats; mean +/- SEM), calculated using the excess H-2 in breath after
lactulose as standard. All products showed similar in vitro digestibi
lity, resulting in estimated glycaemic indexes of 117.5 (24.0) for ric
e, 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: R
esults 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. Sponsorship: Gran
t No. 93.00599.PF41 from the National Research Council (CNR - Targeted
Project 'Prevention and Control of Disease Factors') Subproject 'Alim
entazione'. Descriptors: carbohydrate, children, colonic fermentation,
dietary fibre, digestibility, ready-to-eat breakfast cereals