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

由51%的全谷物组成的英国产品可以宣称，“拥有健康心脏的人倾向于吃更多的全谷物食物，这是健康生活方式的一部分。”全谷物中存在的许多成分被假设为有助于与食用全谷物相关的有益心血管效应，包括酚酸。最近对人类使用富含酚酸的食物(蓝莓、咖啡、香槟)的饮食干预能够改善循环系统的功能。燕麦是酚酸的丰富来源，尽管它们对人类健康有益的程度与全谷物摄取有关还没有在人类身上进行调查。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改善，从而有助于健康的心血管功能。基于我们实验室现有的人类工作，这项研究旨在确定酚酸如何通过调节人体循环系统的功能来增强人类的血管功能。该提案将在三个方面提供关键信息。首先，它将提供有关商业燕麦产品和新开发的燕麦产品中存在的酚类含量变化的信息。其次，我们将测试富含酚酸的燕麦片摄入改善健康人体循环功能的能力，使用已建立的金标准，临床测量身体周围的血液流动。第三，我们将努力确定这些对血管功能有益的影响在体内的调节过程。这一建议的结果对于开发饮食中酚酸的潜在有益健康影响，特别是与燕麦和其他全谷物摄入量有关的潜在有益健康影响具有重要意义。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、更难持续的食品/饮料的选择，如可可和浆果，这些也被证明对循环产生了这样的生物效应。通过应用合理的饮食建议，健康老龄化的概念植根于本提案的核心。在学术界/工业界未来努力开发食品的这种公共健康特性之前，来自该提案的数据是必要的。人们对这类功能食品的需求有了很大的增长(美国市场增长了21%)，因果关系数据对于制定EFSA/FDA关于特定燕麦产品的健康声明至关重要。不良饮食/生活方式和肥胖对血管健康/疾病的影响已有很好的报道，虽然建议摄取全麦燕麦以维持健康的循环和心脏，但迄今没有研究提供证据证明燕麦中的多酚对健康的影响。目前，英国有300多万英国人患有心血管相关问题，每年用于医疗系统的费用超过300亿GB。然而，据估计，80%-90%的过早心血管事件是可以预防的，而健康的饮食在这方面是至关重要的。我们的目标是与大型食品公司百事公司合作，设计和测试一种新型燕麦食品/饮料，具有抵消正确血管功能丧失的潜力。更多地了解特定饮食如何促进健康的心血管衰老，将有助于我们定义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.