Improvement of the digestibility of rare-sugars by nano-food-technology

Research Project

Project/Area Number	24650510
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Research Field	Eating habits, studies on eating habits
Research Institution	National Institute for Materials Science
Principal Investigator	Shirai Yoko 国立研究開発法人物質・材料研究機構, 生体機能材料ユニット, 主幹エンジニア (10399404)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	KAMIMURA Wataru 東京大学, 医学部付属病院, 研究員 (80399394)
Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha)	MATSUO Tatsuhiro 香川大学, 農学部, 教授 (20270019)
Project Period (FY)	2012-04-01 – 2016-03-31
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 2015)
Budget Amount *help	¥3,770,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥870,000) Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,040,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥240,000) Fiscal Year 2013: ¥1,170,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥270,000) Fiscal Year 2012: ¥1,560,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥360,000)
Keywords	希少糖 / DDS / 機能性食品 / ＤＤＳ
Outline of Final Research Achievements	Rare-sugars have various physiological activities such as the decrease of body fat accumulation, the decline in serum glucose level, and the elevation of serum insulin level. Because of the low digestion ratio and the disposition different from glucose, the availability of rare sugars is limited. In this study, we attempted to improve the blood threshold of rare sugars by means of drug-delivery techniques. In order to apply for functional food we chose several safe, easily available, and inexpensive carriers and prepared the complexes of them with rare sugars. We assessed the effects of chronic feeding of the rare-sugars -carrier-complexes for rats to obtain the basic data on the safety of the complexes as nutritional substrates. No difference was found between the control group and the complex-fed groups in body weight gain, food efficiency, and most serum chemical levels. These results suggest that the rare-sugars -carrier-complexes have no dietary toxicity for rats.