One-Week Elderberry Juice Treatment Increases Carbohydrate Oxidation after a Meal Tolerance Test and Is Well Tolerated in Adults: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Study.

Obesity in the United States continues to worsen. Anthocyanin-rich fruits and vegetables provide a pragmatic dietary approach to slow its metabolic complications. Given American diet patterns, foods with high anthocyanin content could address dose-response challenges. The study objective was to determine the effect of 100% elderberry juice on measures of indirect calorimetry (IC) and insulin sensitivity/glucose tolerance in a placebo-controlled, randomized, crossover pilot study. Overweight and obese adults were randomized to a 5-week study which included 2 1-week periods of twice-daily elderberry juice (EBJ) or sugar-matched placebo consumption separated by a 3-week washout period. Following each 1-week test period, IC and insulin sensitivity/glucose tolerance was measured with a 3 h meal tolerance test (MTT). Treatment differences were tested with linear mixed modeling. A total of 22 prospective study volunteers (18 F/4 M) attended recruitment meetings, and 9 were analyzed for treatment differences. EBJ was well tolerated and compliance was 99.6%. A total of 6 IC measures (intervals) were created, which coincided with 10-20 min gaseous samplings in-between MTT blood samplings. Average CHO oxidation was significantly higher during the MTT after 1-week EBJ consumption (3.38 vs. 2.88 g per interval, EBJ vs. placebo, p = 0.0113). Conversely, average fat oxidation was significantly higher during the MTT after 1-week placebo consumption (1.17 vs. 1.47 g per interval, EBJ vs. placebo, p = 0.0189). This was in-line with a significantly lower average respiratory quotient after placebo treatment (0.87 vs. 0.84, EBJ vs. placebo, p = 0.0114). Energy expenditure was not different. There was no difference in serum glucose or insulin response between treatments. This pilot study of free-living volunteers describes significant change in IC but not insulin sensitivity with an EBJ intervention. Controlled feeding and increased sample size will help determine the utility of EBJ on these outcomes.

Dietary Fat Chain Length, Saturation, and PUFA Source Acutely Affect Diet-Induced Thermogenesis but Not Satiety in Adults in a Randomized, Crossover Trial.

Structural differences in dietary fatty acids modify their rate of oxidation and effect on satiety, endpoints that may influence the development of obesity. This study tests the hypothesis that meals containing fat sources with elevated unsaturated fats will result in greater postprandial energy expenditure, fat oxidation, and satiety than meals containing fats with greater saturation. In a randomized, 5-way crossover design, healthy men and women (n = 23; age: 25.7 ± 6.6 years; BMI: 27.7 ± 3.8 kg/m2) consumed liquid meals containing 30 g of fat from heavy cream (HC), olive oil (OO), sunflower oil (SFO), flaxseed oil (FSO), and fish oil (FO). Energy expenditure and diet-induced thermogenesis (DIT) were determined by metabolic rate over a 240 min postprandial period. Serum concentrations of ghrelin, glucose, insulin, and triacylglycerol (TAG) were assessed. DIT induced by SFO was 5% lower than HC and FO (p = 0.04). Energy expenditure and substrate oxidation did not differ between fat sources. Postprandial TAG concentrations were significantly affected by fat source (p = 0.0001). Varying fat sources by the degree of saturation and PUFA type modified DIT but not satiety responses in normal to obese adult men and women.

Identification of Phenotypic Lipidomic Signatures in Response to Long Chain n-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Supplementation in Humans.

Background Supplementation with long chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids is used to reduce total circulating triacylglycerol (TAG) concentrations. However, in about 30% of people, supplementation with long chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids does not result in decreased plasma TAG. Lipidomic analysis may provide insight into this inter-individual variability. Methods Lipidomic analyses using targeted, mass spectrometry were performed on plasma samples obtained from a clinical study in which participants were supplemented with 3 g/day of long chain n-3 in the form of fish oil capsules over a 6-week period. TAG species and cholesteryl esters (CE) were quantified for 130 participants pre- and post-supplementation. Participants were segregated into 3 potential responder phenotypes: (1) positive responder (Rpos; TAG decrease), (2) non-responder (Rnon; lacking TAG change), and (3) negative responder (Rneg; TAG increase) representing 67%, 18%, and 15% of the study participants, respectively. Separation of the 3 phenotypes was attributed to differential responses in TAG with 50 to 54 carbons with 1 to 4 desaturations. Elevated TAG with higher carbon number and desaturation were common to all phenotypes following supplementation. Using the TAG responder phenotype for grouping, decreases in total CE and specific CE occurred in the Rpos phenotype versus the Rneg phenotype with intermediate responses in the Rnon phenotype. CE 20:5, containing eicosapentaenoic acid (20:5n-3), was elevated in all phenotypes. A classifier combining lipidomic and genomic features was built to discriminate triacylglycerol response phenotypes and reached a high predictive performance with a balanced accuracy of 75%. Conclusions These data identify lipidomic signatures, TAG and CE, associated with long chain n-3 response p henotypes and identify a novel phenotype based upon CE changes. Registration URL: https://www.ClinicalTrials.gov; Unique Identifier: NCT01343342.

Prebiotic milk oligosaccharides prevent development of obese phenotype, impairment of gut permeability, and microbial dysbiosis in high fat-fed mice.

Microbial dysbiosis and increased intestinal permeability are targets for prevention or reversal of weight gain in high-fat (HF) diet-induced obesity (DIO). Prebiotic milk oligosaccharides (MO) have been shown to benefit the host intestine but have not been used in DIO. We hypothesized that supplementation with bovine MO would prevent the deleterious effect of HF diet on the gut microbiota and intestinal permeability and attenuate development of the obese phenotype. C57BL/6 mice were fed a control diet, HF (40% fat/kcal), or HF + prebiotic [6%/kg bovine milk oligosaccharides (BMO) or inulin] for 1, 3, or 6 wk. Gut microbiota and intestinal permeability were assessed in the ileum, cecum, and colon. Addition of BMO to the HF diet significantly attenuated weight gain, decreased adiposity, and decreased caloric intake; inulin supplementation also lowered weight gain and adiposity, but this did not reach significance. BMO and inulin completely abolished the HF diet-induced increase in paracellular and transcellular permeability in the small and large intestine. Both BMO and inulin increased abundance of beneficial microbes Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus in the ileum. However, inulin supplementation altered phylogenetic diversity and decreased species richness. We conclude that addition of BMO to the HF diet completely prevented increases in intestinal permeability and microbial dysbiosis and was partially effective to prevent weight gain in DIO.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study provides the first report of the effects of prebiotic bovine milk oligosaccharides on the host phenotype of high-fat diet-induced obesity in mice.