Skip to main content
ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Albany, California » Western Regional Research Center » Healthy Processed Foods Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #198320
Title: SOLUBLE FIBERS PREVENT INSULIN RESISTANCE IN HAMSTERS FED HIGH SATURATED FAT DIETS

Author
item Yokoyama, Wallace - Wally
item SHAO, QIMING - SCIOS

Submitted to: Cereal Foods World
Publication Type: Other
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/1/2006
Publication Date: 2/1/2006
Citation: Yokoyama, W.H., Shao, Q. January-February 2006. Soluble fibers prevent insulin resistance in hamsters fed high saturated fat diets. Cereal Foods World. 51:16-18.

Interpretive Summary: Antioxidants in barley may help reduce oxidative damage.

Technical Abstract: Americans and populations of other developed countries are experiencing an epidemic of obesity and type II diabetes. Type II diabetes or adult onset diabetes once rarely found in young people is becoming increasingly common in school children. Barley may help to prevent insulin resistance and resulting type II diabetes, and also to delay the onset of diabetes in individuals already insulin-resistant. Using a hamster animal model that becomes insulin-resistant when fed a diet similar in fat and caloric content to the American diet, we have shown that soluble fibers including barley fiber prevents insulin resistance. Soluble fibers restore glucose movement into tissues. Tissues deprived of glucose in insulin-resistant animals turn to fat as an energy source. Fat oxidation results in the generation of free radicals and other reactive oxygen species that damage cells. Antioxidants in barley may help to reduce oxidative damage.