Objective: To determine the impact of intake occasion (with or without a meal), and product fat level on the cholesterollowering efficacy of a plant sterol (PS)-enriched (3 g/day) single-dose yoghurt drink. Design: Double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, parallel study with a 4 weeks run-in and 4 weeks intervention period. Setting: Subjects recruited from the general community. Subjects: A total of 184 moderate hypercholesterolaemic subjects (81 men and 103 women) (age 5772 years) completed the study. Interventions: The study product was a 100-g single-dose yoghurt drink with or without added PS in the form of PS esters. The subjects were randomly assigned to one of five 4-week treatments: (i) drink A (0.1% dairy fat, 2.2% total fat) with a meal, (ii) drink A without a meal, (iii) drink B (1.5% dairy fat, 3.3% total fat) with a meal, (iv) drink B without a meal and (v) placebo drink with a meal. Results: LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) was significantly lowered when the single-dose drink was taken with a meal independent of its fat content (drink A: À9.5% (Po0.001, 95% CI: À13.8 to À5.2); drink B: À9.3% (Po0.001, 95% CI: À13.7 to À4.9)) as compared to placebo. When consumed without a meal, LDL-C was also significantly decreased (drink A: À5.1% (Po0.05, 95% CI: À9.4 to À0.8); drink B: À6.9% (Po0.01, 95% CI: À11.3 to À2.5) as compared to placebo, however the effect was significantly smaller as compared to the intake with a meal. Conclusion: These results indicate that a PS-ester-enriched single-dose yoghurt drink effectively reduces LDL-C irrespective of the fat content of the product. A substantially larger decrease in serum cholesterol concentration was achieved when the singledose drink was consumed with a meal emphasizing the importance of the intake occasion for optimal cholesterol-lowering efficacy.
In this human intervention study, no statistically significant LDL-c lowering effect was seen with either TFs alone or the TFs/catechins combination as compared to placebo. Based on these findings it cannot be concluded that tea flavonoids such as theaflavins and catechins are responsible for a putative cholesterol-lowering effect of black tea, at least not with the daily dose applied in the present study.
The objective of this study was to investigate the suitability of ice cream (IC) as a carrier for probiotics.A DBRPC parallel study was performed with healthy 25-55 year old volunteers divided into three groups of 30. During 4 weeks, each group consumed either: (1) a daily IC control product, (2) IC with 1 · 10 9 cfu of Bifidobacterium lactis HN019 every day, or (3) IC with 5 · 10 9 cfu of B. lactis Bb-12 every other day alternating with control IC. Effects on the intestinal microflora and on phagocytosis, natural killer (NK) cell activity and faecal IgA were investigated.During the four intervention weeks, the product stability of B. lactis Bb-12 was similar under laboratory controlled and home storage conditions, but loss of probiotic viability was 2-3-fold higher for B. lactis HN019 under home storage conditions. Consumption of IC with B. lactis Bb-12 every other day resulted in the presence of a significant number of B. lactis in the faeces of study subjects compared to controls (P = 0.0003), whereas every day consumption of IC with B. lactis HN019 did not increase numbers of the strain in faeces compared to control subjects (P = 0.58). Sixty percent of subjects consuming the B. lactis Bb-12 product had the probiotic in their faeces. This is well within the range described for other product formats. In contrast, only 13 % of HN019 consumers had detectable B. lactis in their faeces, whereas 10 % of controls showed B. lactis positivity, which is similar to what has been described in the literature.No shifts were detected in selected genera of the faecal microflora. Besides a very small but significant decrease in NK cell activity after consumption of either test product (P < 0.04), no changes in immune markers were observed. The lack of beneficial effects on immune markers can be attributed to the fairly healthy study population and the fact that bifidobacteria are currently more and more positioned around gut and digestive health instead of immune health.It was concluded that IC can be a suitable carrier for some, but not for all probiotics. B. lactis Bb-12 is compatible with IC delivering detectable amounts of live probiotics through the consumers intestine even in an every-other day consumption pattern.
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