Major causes of death in Japanese people are consisted by cancer, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease. These diseases are concerned with highly significantly correlated with obesity. Throughout most of human history, weight gain and fat storage have been viewed as signs of health and prosperity. Today, however, as standards of living, continue to rise weight gain and obesity are posing a growing threat to health of inhabitants from countries all over the world. Furthermore, as obesity is a key risk factor in the natural history of so-called life style related disease, especially glucose intolerance and diabetes mellitus. So, in this review, we are clarified the role of dietary fibre for prevention of obesity and glucose intolerance showing the experimental results in OLETF rats. The OLETF rats were characterized by obesity, mesenteric fat storage, insulin resistance, delayed insulin response to glucose load, and gradual onset of high concentrationdietary fibre food in OLETF rats were resulted in prevention of body fat storage and amelioration of insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia. Consequently, the development of glucose intolerance was delayed by dietary fibre supplementation in this model rats.

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This study was performed to clarify the effect of corn soluble dietary fiber(CSD) on blood pressure of human and experimental animals. CSD contained 83.6% soluble dietary fiber. Eighteen subjects received 5 g CSD as a solution of hot water in every meal during 4 weeks. They were divided into two groups by their systolic blood pressure. The groups were mild hypertension group of 6 subjects over 140mmHg and normal group of 12 subjects under 140mmHg, respectively. Systolic and diastolic blood pressures in hypertension group showed significant reduction by the treatment of CSD. However, no significant effect was observed in the normal group. On the other hand, spontaneously hypertensive rats(SHR) were used in the animal experiment. SHR rats were divided into two groups. SHR rats received ad libitum 5% solution in CSD group and distilled water in the control group during 10 weeks. Blood pressure in CSD group was?@ significantly supressed from 1 week after starting the treatment. The specific role of the dietary fiber in the regulation of blood pressure certainly merits more carefully and critical evaluation.

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The effects of particle size of beet dietary fiber (BDF) and molecular weight of guar gum (GG) on the weights of cecal contents and cecal tissue, the concentrations of cecal organic acids and plasma lipids were studied in rats. Rats were fed one of the following five diets for 21 days: a fiber-free diet (FF diet) or FF diets containing either 10% large particle BDF (350-550 μm, BDF-L), 10% small particle BDF (62-88 μm, BDFS), 10% intact GG (average MW 210, 000, GG) or 10% partially hydrolyzed GO (average MW 15, 000, PHGG). The above analyzed parameters did not differ between BDF-L and BDF-S groups. Cecal contents weight and cecal acetic acid, propionic acid, lactic acid and total organic acid concentrations were significantly higher in PHGG group than in GO group. But, cecal tissue weight and plasma lipids did not differ between GO and PHGG groups.

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Hydrogenated isomaltooligosaccharide (IMO-H), a kind of sugar alcohols, is expected to be available for sugarless foods as a sweetener. In the context of the safety evaluation of IMO-H, subchronic and acute toxicitystudies, mutagenicity assay and laxative effects in humans were summarized as follows. (1) Male Sprague-Dawley rats were fed a diet containing 3% or 10% IMO-H for 16 weeks ad libitum. No dose-related and toxic change of IMO-H feeding was observed in treated rats as regards the body weight, hematological and blood biochemical tests, and anatomical and histopathological examinations. (2) At a single dose level of 15.3, 21.7, 30.7 or 43.4 g/kg of IMO-H was orally administered in male Wistar rats, the mortality increased as the dose increased and the LD₅₀ was estimated 32.4 g/kg. (3) A mutagenicity test (Ames assay) and a chromosome aberration test using Chinese hamster lung (CHL) cells gave no indication that IMO-H possessed any genotoxic potential. (4)Twenty healthy men were divided randomly into 4 groups and orally administered the different doses of IMO-H and maltitol. Both of sweeteners caused diarrhea regularly at the higher dose and the maximum non-effective dose of IMO-H was estimated to be about 0.6 g/kg and that of maltitol was 0.3 g/kg. Based on these results, it is found that IMO-H is a less toxic sugar substitute and the laxative effect in humans is lower than that of general sugar alcohols.

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Effects of ingestion of LS-cookies containing galactosylsucrose (LS) were investigated on microflora, defecation, and fecal condition in 5 healthy middle-aged male volunteers, and compared with those of placebo cookies. The subjects were given four pieces of placebo cookies (total 48g, without LS) daily for 7 days (control phase), then given four pieces of LS-cookies (total 48g, LS 4g) daily for 10 days. The ratio of beneficial microbes, Bifidobacteria, to anaerobes was significantly increased from 14.0% to 34.6% (p<0.05), and the ratio of harmful microbes, Bacteroidaceae, decreased but not signigicant by the ingestion of LS-cookies as compared with the ingestion of placebo cookies. Since none of them were constipated, the number of days with defecation per week did not changed by LS-cookies ingestion. Fecal volume tended to increase, and hardness feeling of defecation was significantly improved (p<0.05) by the ingestion of LS-cookies as compared with those of placebo cookies. These results demonstrate that the ingestion of cookies (48g) containing galactosylsucrose (4g) promotes the proliferation of beneficial intestinal microbes, and improves fecal condition such as volume and hardness feeling in middle-aged males.

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