Effects of a diet based on inulin-rich vegetables on gut health and nutritional behavior in healthy humans

Study answer

What this study found

The ITF-rich vegetable diet was feasible and generally well tolerated, and it produced a transient increase in Bifidobacterium along with improved satiety and reduced desire for sweet and salty foods. Bifidobacterium increased 3.8-fold by sequencing and 3.0-fold by qPCR, with Bifidobacterium longum subsp. longum also increasing; these microbial changes returned toward baseline about 3 weeks after the intervention ended. Flatulence increased during the diet, but other gastrointestinal symptoms were largely unchanged, and in vivo hydrogen breath testing was not modified. The intervention also…

Study & population

Single-group, within-subject intervention in healthy adult volunteers at Université catholique de Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.

Intervention

Participants followed a 2-week diet based on inulin-type fructan rich vegetables, providing at least 9 g fructans per day and averaging 15 g/day from Jerusalem artichoke, salsify, artichoke, leek, onion, and garlic; the foods were eaten daily as meals and soup.

Key limitation

The study was small, short, and single-group with participants serving as their own controls, so causal inference is limited.

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Original abstract