Milling & Baking News - June 20, 2017 - 22

Nutrition and Health X

Research adds new wrinkle to
whole wheat/white bread debate
Cell Biology and the Department of
Immunology.
"The gut microbiota composition
remained person specific throughout this trial and was generally
resilient to the intervention," Mr.
Korem said. "We demonstrate statistically significant interpersonal
variability in the glycemic response
to different bread types, suggesting
that the lack of phenotypic difference between the bread types stems
from a person-specific effect."
The stakes for clearly understanding the healthfulness of bread is difficult to overstate. The researchers
noted that bread is a key element of
the human diet, consumed by billions and accounting for about 10% of
adult caloric intake globally. Evidence
of the healthfulness of whole grains is
considerable but inconsistent, the researchers said, citing numerous studies showing higher whole grains intake associated with lower mortality
and reduced risk of cancer, diabetes,
cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome together with better
glycemic control, cholesterol levels
and blood pressure.
"Conversely, some of the above
studies show improvement in only
a handful of clinical markers and
additional large-scale interventional crossover trials show no significant effect on these disease-risk
markers," the researchers said.
"Yet additional studies claim that
whole grain bread consumption
may lead to a decrease in mineral
absorption."
While bread has been a staple
for thousands of years, researchers
highlighted changes adopted in the
production of bread over the relatively recent past. The use of baker 's
yeast has become popular only in
the last 150 years, and additives and
emulsifiers popular in commercial
bread represent an even more recent
change.
In the study, the researchers performed a randomized crossover trial
on 20 healthy subjects "comparing
the effects of traditionally milled
and prepared whole grain sourdough bread and industrial white
bread made from refined wheat on
multiple clinical and disease markers and on the composition and
function of the gut microbiome."
22 / June 20, 2017 XMilling & Baking News

The trial consisted of two oneweek periods of dietary intervention
separated by a two-week washout
period. Half the subjects began with
a week of a popular white bread
while the remaining subjects began
with a week of sourdough-leavened
bread baked using traditional methods in an artisanal bakery.
The subjects were instructed to
eat bread equating to 50 grams of

available carbohydrates each morning, which translated into 145 grams
of sourdough and 110 grams of
white bread. Additional bread was
consumed with other meals over
the course of the day. Other wheat
products such as pasta were to be
avoided during the trial.
To calculate microbiota population, the researchers sequenced
DNA produced from stool samples
collected on baseline days and outcome days.
The treatments were not predictors of health outcomes.
"We found no significant difference between the two treatments
both for the primary outcome measure of this trial, glycemic control,
which we quantified using the response to an oral glucose tolerance
test and wakeup glucose levels,
and for 18 secondary outcome measures," the study said.
The researchers found that the
type of bread that would induce a
lower glycemic response in each
subject could be predicted "based
solely on microbiome data prior to
the intervention."
To the researchers, the results suggest a different approach should be

sourdough - perhaps making the
results surprising. The results were
not random.
"We show marked and highly
significant interpersonal variation
in the glycemic response to the two
types of bread, with some subjects
featuring a higher response to one
bread and some to the other," the
researchers said. "We further show
that the type of bread that induces
higher glycemic responses could
be predicted for each subject using
only microbiome data.
"Understanding the interpersonal
variation in the effect of bread, one
of the most-consumed staple foods,
would allow the personalization
of bread-related nutritional recommendations and optimization of
food choices worldwide."
The researchers conceded that
further research is needed to validate the study results but expressed
the view the ramifications of the
findings could prove great.
"Understanding the effect of different foods on clinical parameters
is a first step toward combining different foods in order to personally
tailor diets that produce clinical effects," they said. MBN

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Continued from Page 1

considered when considering what
kind of bread to eat.
"The lack of differential treatment effects between white and
sourdough bread implies that either
the two breads exert similar effects
within each individual or, more intriguingly, that the effect of each
bread is person specific such that,
averaged across subjects in the cohort, bread type does not affect the
overall average," the study said.
The glycemic index for the two
bread types differed considerably
- 70 for white bread and 54 for

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Milling & Baking News - June 20, 2017

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