The effect of food structure on energy intake and appetite regulation

Abstract

The beneficial effects of resistant starch on appetite regulation and body weight is well established in the literature; however, the underlying mechanism is not fully understood. Cell walls are the main source of resistant starch in human diets. Changes in dietary patterns over the recent years are dominantly characterised by highly-processed food, which commonly lack their cell-wall structure intact. Industrial processing can cause damage to the native structure of the cell wall, affecting nutrient bioavailability rate and appetitive responses. This thesis aimed to investigate the literature on food structure definition and its effect on energy intake and appetite regulation. Firstly, a systematic review of the effect of food structure on subjective appetite sensations and energy intake was conducted. It has been shown that there is a gap in the current literature on food structure definition. There are only four clinical trials found in the literature that investigated the effect of cellular wall integrity on appetite and energy intake. Secondly, cross-sectional analyses were conducted on two cohort studies to investigate the effect of food structure on energy intake; the National Diet and Nutrition Survey and the Airwave Health Monitoring Study. Lastly, a human clinical study was conducted to investigate the acute effect of different cell-wall structure meals on a subsequent open-buffet meal, and subjective appetite ratings. The work presented in this thesis suggest that there is an inverse association between the intake of minimally-processed (intact cell-wall) food and energy intake on the long-term, however more work is required to investigate the mechanism and acute effect of food structure.