The definition of dietary fiber – discussions at the Ninth Vahouny Fiber Symposium: building scientific agreement

Abstract

A definition for dietary fiber was adopted in June 2009 by the Codex Alimentarius Commission based on the recommendation for endorsement of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) in November 2008. The definition listed three categories of carbohydrate polymers that are not hydrolyzed by the endogenous enzymes in the small intestine of humans. However, the definition left the inclusion of carbohydrates with degrees of polymerization (DP) in the range of 3 and 9 to the discretion of national authorities and left the 'physiological effect(s) of benefit to health' as undefined. The ILSI Europe and ILSI North America's committees on dietary carbohydrates organized a forum at the Ninth Vahouny Fiber Symposium in 2010 to discuss these implementation issues with the objective of building scientific consensus on how to resolve them. The results of this session are encouraging and indicated that the scientific community agrees on maintaining a worldwide consensus regarding the inclusion of non-digestible carbohydrates with ]DP3 as dietary fiber and on a core, non-exhaustive list of beneficial physiological effects that dietary fibers have. These results are consistent with previous worldwide agreements.

Dietary fibre and health in children and adolescents

“…More recently there have been attempts to harmonise the definition and in 2010 dietary fibre, according to the Codex Alimentarius (9,10) , was defined as 'carbohydrate polymers with ten or more monomeric units, which are not hydrolysed by the endogenous enzymes in the small intestine of humans'. The decision to include carbohydrates from three to nine monomeric units was left to national authorities and this caused further debate (1) . Many organisations have now adopted this definition (11)(12)(13)(14)(15) , including those in the UK (16) .…”

“…This has led to re-evaluation of dietary fibre recommendations for children but much is still based on extrapolation rather than solid evidence. In parallel, continued debate about the definition of dietary fibre (1) and growing awareness of the importance of the gut microbiome in a range of acute and chronic conditions (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7) has added to the impetus for understanding the role of dietary fibre in childhood in establishing sustained health and prevention of chronic disease. In this review, the current recommendations for childhood will be discussed alongside evidence for the effects of dietary fibre.…”

Effect of Prebiotic Inulin on the Fermentation and Growth Kinetics Pattern of Probiotic Yoghurt Bacteria

“…This dietary fiber can be soluble or insoluble. The soluble dietary fibres are more effective for bacterial fermentation thus it becomes more beneficial to the gut health (Brownawell et al, 2012;Howlett et al, 2010).…”

<b>Profile of publications about functional foods in Brazilian journals: a scientometric analysis from 2000 to 2015 and an overview of Brazilian legislation

“…Soybean was the most cited food in the articles, both in the form of extracts, as well as flours and soy milk (Table 2). Dietary fiber is the fiber resistant to the action of human digestive enzymes, consisting of carbohydrate polymers, with three or more monomeric units, and lignin (Anderson et al, 2009, Howlett et al, 2010, Bernaud & Rodrigues, 2013.…”