British Scientists Create Ingredient To Make Food Feel Fuller

The phrase "all you can eat" may hold an entirely new meaning in the not-so-distant future. British scientists have helped develop a new ingredient that, when combined with regular food, may help fight obesity and control weight gain. This is cause enough for food lovers around the world to break open that hidden packet of Oreos and celebrate!

Scientists at the London Imperial College and at the University of Glasgow have been working together with a private organisation called Imperial Innovations to successfully develop a new ingredient that may help reduce hunger. The ingredient is said to contain propionate, which is a natural substance that usually occurs in fiber-rich foods.

Propionate is said to stimulate the gut or digestive system such that, it releases a hormone that tricks the brain into perceiving that the amount of food ingested is more than it is in actuality. This, in turn, reduces hunger and lowers the risk of weight gain. The new ingredient, inulin-propionate ester of IPE, is created to provide a comparatively much larger amounts of propionate than that which can be generated in a normal diet.

Dr Douglas Morrison, who is also the co-author of the study, has reported, "It is often difficult to translate these findings directly into successful human interventions. Packaging propionate up to more efficiently deliver it to the large intestine has allowed us to make direct observations in humans that propionate may play an important role in weight management."

Scientists are now working on exploring what kind of foods would work most effectively in allowing the new ingredient IPE to work most effectively. This new scientific development could possibly lead to a healthy and permanent solution to the rising obesity problem in many nations around the world.