Development and application of phenolic-rich oats for the maintenance of cardiovascular health

英国产品由>51%的全谷物组成，可以声称，“心脏健康的人倾向于吃更多的全谷物食品作为健康生活方式的一部分”。全谷物中存在的许多成分被假设有助于与全谷物消费相关的有益心血管效应，包括酚酸。最近的饮食干预在人类使用富含酚酸的食物（蓝莓，咖啡，香槟）能够改善循环系统的功能。燕麦是酚酸的丰富来源，尽管它们在多大程度上有助于与全谷物摄入相关的人类健康益处尚未在人类中进行研究。我们假设富含酚酸的燕麦将有效地诱导人类循环功能的急性、有益的改善，从而有助于健康的心血管功能。在我们实验室进行的现有人类工作的基础上，本研究旨在确定酚酸如何增强人体血管功能通过重点关注它们如何调节人体循环系统的功能。该提案将在三个领域提供重要信息。首先，它将提供有关存在于燕麦产品的商业品种和新开发的品种中的酚含量的变化的信息。其次，我们将测试富含酚酸的燕麦摄入量对健康人循环功能的改善能力，使用已建立的金标准，身体周围血流的临床测量。第三，我们将努力确定这些对血管功能的有益作用在体内介导的过程。该提案的结果对利用膳食中酚酸的潜在有益健康效应具有影响，特别是与燕麦和其他全谷物摄入量有关。燕麦是一种可持续的，相对便宜的英国产品，它提供了一种替代更昂贵和更不可持续的食品/饮料，如可可和浆果，也显示出对循环产生这种生物效应。健康老龄化的概念是通过实施合理的饮食建议而植根于这一建议的核心。在学术界/工业界未来努力利用食品的此类公共卫生特性之前，需要获得该提案中的数据。对这种功能性食品的需求大幅增长（美国市场增长21%），因果数据对于EFSA/FDA特定燕麦产品的健康声明的开发至关重要。不良的饮食/生活方式和肥胖对血管健康/疾病的影响有很好的报道，虽然建议摄入全麦燕麦以维持健康的循环和心脏，但迄今为止还没有研究提供燕麦中多酚对健康影响的证据。目前，英国有超过300万英国人患有心血管相关问题，每年医疗系统的费用超过300亿英镑。然而，据估计，80%-90%的过早心血管事件是可以预防的，健康的饮食是至关重要的。我们的目标是与一家大型食品公司百事可乐公司合作，设计和测试一种新的燕麦食品/饮料，这种食品/饮料有可能抵消正确血管功能的丧失。更多地了解特定饮食如何促进健康的心血管衰老，将有助于我们制定更有效的公共卫生建议，并通过鼓励人们做出更明智的健康食品选择来降低服务成本。

UK products composed of >51% whole grains can claim, "People with a healthy heart tend to eat more whole grains foods as part of a healthy lifestyle". A number of components present in wholegrain have been hypothesised to contribute to the beneficial cardiovascular effects associated with wholegrain consumption, including phenolic acids. Recent dietary interventions in humans using phenolic acid-rich foods (blueberry, coffee, champagne) are capable of improving the function of the circulatory system. Oats are a rich source of phenolic acids, although the degree to which they contribute to the human health benefits associated with wholegrain intake has not been investigated in humans. We hypothesise that phenolic acid-rich oats will be effective at inducing acute, beneficial improvements in circulatory function in humans thus contributing to a healthy cardiovascular function.Building on existing human work conducted in our laboratory, this study is designed to determine how phenolic acids may enhance human vascular function by focussing on how they modulate the function of the human circulatory system. The proposal will provide crucial information in three areas. Firstly, it will provide information regarding the variation in phenolic content that exists in both commercial varieties of oat products and newly developed ones. Secondly, we will test the ability of phenolic acid-rich oat intake to produce improvements in circulatory function in healthy humans using established, gold standard, clinical measures of blood flow around the body. Thirdly, we will strive to determine the processes in the body by which these beneficial effects on blood vessel function are mediated. The outcomes of this proposal have implications for exploiting the potential beneficial health effects of phenolic acids of the diet, particularly with relation to oat and other wholegrain intake. Oats are a sustainable, relatively cheap, UK product that offers an alternative to more expensive and less sustainable foods/beverages such as cocoa and berries, also shown to exert such biological effects on the circulation. The concept of healthy ageing is rooted at the core of this proposal through the application of sound dietary recommendations. Data emanating from the proposal are necessary before academia/industry may work to exploit such public health properties of foods in the future. There has been a large growth in the desire for such functional foods (21% market growth in the USA) and cause-and-effect data are essential for the development of EFSA/FDA health claims on specific oat products. The impact of bad diet/lifestyle and obesity on blood vessel health/disease is well reported and whilst wholegrain oat intake is recommended for the maintenance of a healthy circulation and heart, no studies to date have provided evidence for the health effects of the polyphenols in oats. Over three million Britons currently suffer from cardiovascular-related problems in the UK, with annual costs for the health system exceeding £30billion. Yet it has been estimated that 80%-90% of premature cardio-vascular events are preventable, and a healthy diet is paramount in this. We aim to work with a major food company, PepsiCo, to design and test a novel oat food/beverage with the potential to counteract the loss of correct blood vessel function. Understanding more about how specific diets may promote healthy cardiovascular aging will help us to define more effective public health advice and reduce the cost of services, by encouraging the population to make more informed healthy food choices.