There’s a lot of buzz around fibre — and for good reason. While all fibres are types of carbohydrates, there are several varieties. One example is beta-glucans — a soluble fibre that has been linked to gut, heart and immune health.
To learn more about the health benefits of beta-glucan, researchers at the University of Manitoba and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) are conducting a nutritional study looking at how and if eating beta-glucan derived from oats affects blood pressure.
Fibre is a super-nutrient. It slows the absorption of glucose — which evens out our blood-sugar levels — and lowers cholesterol and inflammation. A fibre-rich diet is associated with better gastrointestinal health and a reduced risk of heart attacks, strokes, high cholesterol, obesity and Type 2 diabetes
“The goal of this project is to find out whether beta-glucan from oats has any effect on managing a healthy blood pressure,” says Dr. Sijo Joseph (Thandapilly), a research scientist with AAFC and co-investigator of the study.
Beta-glucan is found in oats, brown rice, barley, baker’s yeast and medicinal mushrooms such as maitake and shiitake. Beta-glucan acts as a soluble fibre prebiotic (which is like food for your probiotics) in your gastrointestinal tract, helping your gut’s probiotics – also known as beneficial bacteria —function optimally. Probiotics are live active cultures (usually in the form of bacteria and yeast) that help keep your gut healthy. The main job of probiotics is to maintain a healthy balance in your body. Think of it as keeping your body in neutral. They help food digest, produce vitamins and fight off “bad” bacteria that are associated with disease.
“(Beta-glucan) is a very important molecule,” Joseph says. “Our ancestors had higher levels of fibre in their diet but because of our refined and processed foods, we are getting very little. Oats and barley are some of the ways we can enrich fibre in our diet.”
For years, beta-glucan has been used in alternative medicine for everything from cold and flu prevention to fibromyalgia. More recently, it has been studied extensively for its beneficial effects on heart and gut health, as well as been shown to boost immunity and stabilize blood sugar levels. Studies have even found beta-glucan intake can lower total and LDL cholesterol. LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol is often called the “bad” cholesterol because it collects in the walls of your blood vessels, raising your risk for heart disease and stroke.
But research is minimal for beta-glucan intake and blood pressure. That’s where this pilot study comes into play.
“Beta-glucan in both barley and oats already has Health Canada health claims that it can lower blood cholesterol — but there is nothing on blood pressure. Since we have similar studies on cholesterol and glycemic response, we believe it could work,” says Joseph. “Previously, we did a study in hypertension in rats and we found a very high potential for beta-glucan in lowering blood pressure. So, we wanted to test that in humans.”
Joseph says the goal of their nutritional study is to reach four grams of beta-glucan per day. To do this, the research team, including Dr. Thomas Netticadan, Dr. Lovemore Malunga and Dr. Nancy Ames, came up with a specific meal formulation in the form of a breakfast cookie that will contain a certain amount of carbohydrates, protein and fat to be nutritionally adequate. Two types of breakfast cookies will be developed — one with beta-glucan and one without.
For the study, the research team will be sending packages of the breakfast cookies to subjects who will then measure their blood pressure using ambulatory monitors (portable blood pressure recording devices.)
The study is unique in that it’s been designed to be zero contact — both the cookies and ambulatory monitors will be delivered to participants’ homes and all follow-up will be conducted via secure virtual chat or online.
“My colleague, Dr. Rebecca Mollard, and I wondered how we could do these trials and minimize (COVID-19) risk,” says Dylan MacKay, principal study investigator and assistant professor in food and human nutritional sciences and internal medicine at the University of Manitoba.
MacKay says they have a system where the consent process is now done online.
“Participants will have the ability to discuss (the study) with us over a secure online connection,” he says. “Our visits are virtual but we’re not removing that opportunity for people to ask questions and get an understanding of what they’re agreeing to.”
The study will consist of two four-week periods: one treatment period (cookies containing beta-glucan) and one control period (cookies containing no beta-glucan) with a four week period in between where no cookies are given. The total trial time from start to finish will be around three months.
During the treatment period, participants will eat two breakfast cookies made from oats containing a total of four grams per day of beta-glucan (each cookie contains two grams) whereas the control period will provide breakfast cookies made primarily from wheat with no beta-glucan. The study will be located at the Chronic Disease Innovation Centre in Seven Oaks General Hospital in Winnipeg.
“Each cookie intervention period is four weeks — so they get cookies for a total of eight weeks, and in the middle of those four-week trials, they have a four-week washout period where there’s no intervention,” says MacKay. “We don’t know which cookie they’ll get so we can look at the results of one cookie versus the other. We’re piloting to see if there’s a difference based on blood pressure.”
Participants will be asked to wear an ambulatory blood pressure monitor for 24 hours per day for three consecutive days at the beginning and end of each treatment period — these monitors automatically measure blood pressure every 15 to 30 minutes during the day and 30 to 60 minutes in the evening.
“The gold standard in measuring blood pressure in trials now is ambulatory blood pressure measuring devices,” says MacKay. “What (these monitors do) is overcome the idea of ‘white coat syndrome’ where if you’re afraid of having your blood pressure measured, your blood pressure typically goes up. Some people get elevated blood pressure just by going to the doctor.”
The team will be dropping off digital scales to people’s homes so they can report body weight and participants will be asked to fill out a dietary recall, which is an online questionnaire that captures information about foods they’ve eaten.
“We’re not controlling (what people eat) outside of giving them breakfast cookies, so we want them to continue with their normal diet,” MacKay says. “The idea being that people are creatures of habit, for the most part. We’re hoping that the only difference that we’re going to see in blood pressure is likely due to the beta-glucan.”
High systolic blood pressure (SBP) and/or high diastolic blood pressure (DBP) can cause damage to blood vessels and result in cardiovascular disease or even a heart attack or stroke, which are among the leading causes of hospitalization and death in Canada, according to Statistics Canada.
“Blood pressure is a silent killer. With diabetes, you get thirsty and tired. For cholesterol, you get fatigue. Our goal is to come up with a dietary approach to managing blood pressure,” Joseph says. “(With beta-glucan) you get health benefits and can reduce the health care burden. If you can reduce risk factors, that means fewer people with cardiovascular problems — it all helps the public health system.”
Results from the 2016-19 Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS) indicate that among Canadian adults aged 20 to 79, 23 per cent reported they had been diagnosed with hypertension by a health-care professional, were taking anti-hypertensive medication or had high measured blood pressure equivalent to stage 2 hypertension.
Results of the nutritional study will be shared at national and international scientific conferences. Joseph notes that more robust studies may be needed along with a larger population to help fulfil the health claims.
The study will take place in 2022 and the research team is looking to recruit approximately 24 participants between the ages of 40 and 75 with higher than normal blood pressure and currently not taking any blood pressure management medications. If you’re interested in participating in this nutritional study, email [email protected].
Published in the Winnipeg Free Press
@SabrinaCsays
]]>People living in remote and rural parts of Manitoba may soon have access to an efficient and potentially life-saving kidney disease detector.
Dr. Navdeep Tangri, a University of Manitoba researcher and doctor at Seven Oaks General Hospital’s Chronic Disease Innovation Centre, is teaming up with a group of fellow scientists to fight back against kidney disease with a new, cutting-edge screening machine.
The digital hand-held device measures albumin, a protein found in urine. A healthy kidney will behave like a sieve, filtering out albumin, whereas a diseased kidney will let the material slip by.
“Protein in the urine is the first sign of kidney damage,” Tangri said.
The machine’s single-use chip registers a urine sample’s albumin levels with 99 per cent accuracy in five minutes or less. By comparison, under the current system, it can take days for a urine sample to arrive at a lab and undergo testing in Manitoba.
“It was very exciting for us,” Tangri said.
This technology’s immediacy significantly pares down the time it takes for health-care providers to uncover disease and create a treatment plan with the patient.
“Anything that streamlines the process of decision-making and provides that quantifiable knowledge to happen more quickly, it’s automatically going to be better for the patients in Manitoba,” said Greg Unger, executive director for the Kidney Foundation of Canada’s Manitoba branch.
Easy access to the technology will save patients the time and money associated with travelling to an urban centre for renal testing, Unger said.
Tangri, Dr. Francis Lin, Dr. Claudio Rigatto, Dr. Jiandong Wu and Dr. Paul Komenda make up the project’s Manitoba-based scientific development team.
“We hope that (these devices) become available in every doctor’s office or primary-care clinic. We also hope they become widely used for screening in remote, rural and low-income countries,” Tangri said.
Manitoba has some of the highest rates of kidney disease in Canada.
From 2011 through 2012, Tangri and his team did a widespread screening for kidney disease in Manitoba First Nations and found very high rates in northern communities.
“The machine we took up north was almost the size of a computer. It was cumbersome to measure urine protein,” Tangri said.
This initiative sparked the team’s idea to create a point-of-care, lightweight product to make testing easier and more mobile.
Early detection of kidney disease is critically important in treatment outcomes and was a key motivator to make the process more efficient, Tangri said, adding that transporting samples eats away at valuable time and has the potential to affect the material’s accuracy.
“If you’re young and you have kidney disease, if you start on treatment early, the treatments are so good that you could potentially avoid dialysis — you could never have dialysis in your entire life,” he said.
In 2019, 1,746 patients underwent chronic dialysis, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority reported. The WRHA also found that between 2010 and 2019, the number of Manitobans on dialysis spiked by 45 per cent — surpassing the national average of 25.7 per cent.
Accurate screening is key to rooting out the disease, because symptoms that include itching, dry mouth and weight loss don’t always jump out as signs of something more serious.
“Oftentimes, people will not know they have some level of kidney disease until they get a test,” Unger said.
The new albumin screening device works in tandem with another of Tangri’s projects.
He made headlines in 2016 when 30 countries adopted his Kidney Failure Risk Equation — a formula that considers urine, sex, age and blood samples to determine a patient’s level of kidney function. The equation can predict with 90 per cent certainty whether a patient will experience kidney failure and require dialysis or a transplant up to five years in advance.
The team is working with the Canadian company Health Logic Interactive Inc. to manufacture and distribute the devices. Tangri anticipates the product will be in the hands of doctors and nurses in less than two years.
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