April 13, 2009
Fiber from corn? White’s research makes it a reality
Resistant starch aids fight against diabetes, cancer, obesity
Pamela White, university professor in food science and human nutrition, has developed corn containing up to 15 times the typical amount of a dietary fiber. In addition to fighting the incidence of type 2 diabetes and colon cancer, fiber-rich foods may help reduce obesity rates by increasing satiety among those who regularly eat them. |
By
Scott Schrage
It’s no secret that Iowans produce – and eat – a lot of corn. It should come as little surprise, then, that an established Iowa State researcher is leading an effort to improve its nutritional content.
What’s more remarkable is how she’s doing it.
Pamela White, university professor in food science and human nutrition, is working alongside Linda Pollak, USDA collaborator and associate professor in agronomy, to develop corn that contains up to 15 times the typical amount of resistant starch – a dietary fiber.
“We have found some corn lines that, by one of our measurement methods, produce starch made up of more than 40 percent [resistant starch],” White said. “Normal corn starch would have two to three percent.”
White noted that normal starch is rapidly converted to sugar and can lead to spikes of glucose in the blood. Resistant starch, however, slows the release of glucose – and emerging research suggests that controlling blood sugar throughout a person’s lifespan can reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Dietary fiber also assists the production of healthy bacteria that can protect against colon cancer. But its most basic benefit may also be its most practical.
“The fiber can increase satiety to curb appetite and obesity,” said White. “Dietary fiber is a bulky food [component] that provides few to no calories. It slows people down while eating and makes them stop sooner when a meal is consumed.”
While its health benefits are numerous, White is also focusing on how to successfully add this resistant starch to common foods without changing basic properties such as taste, texture and consistency. This process requires her to ask – and answer – a variety of practical questions.
“We don’t eat very much raw starch; we generally cook or heat-process it first,” White said. “If we’re going to heat-process it, how much water do we put in it? What kind of food product do we try to simulate? We are currently taking some of these [corn] lines and putting them into a corn tortilla to figure out what kind of impact increasing the resistant starch has on even the ability to make the product.”
According to White, the research and development of fiber-rich corn lines should ultimately provide new opportunities for Iowa agriculture while also helping manufacturers select the best starches for both food production and consumers.
White’s and Pollak’s resistant starch research is funded by the Iowa State University Plant Sciences Institute, an umbrella organization of the Nutrition and Wellness Research Center.
