Head of R&D at Fazer Mills, Markku Mikola (Ph.D. Food Science) has worked with oats for over 30 years, first as a researcher and later in oat commercialization. Mikola explains how oat beta glucan became such a hot topic, key health benefits of oat beta glucan – and busts a few myths.
"It's hard to pinpoint exactly when the hype around oat β‑glucan health benefits began, but in 1987 a medical journalist named Robert Kowalski wrote a best-selling book called the 8-Week Cholesterol Cure, in which he made several health claims about oats. This sparked a great deal of interest in researchers and health-minded consumers alike," Mikola describes.
"Fast forward ten years and in 1997, the US Food and Drug Administration FDA approved the first health claims relating to oats," he adds.
The FDA stipulated that in the US companies could claim that eating foods made from rolled oats, oat bran, and oat flour may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease[vii] – providing that the oats contain enough soluble fiber, and they are consumed as a part of a low-fat diet.
"In Europe, health claims relating to oat β‑glucan first gained official status in 2009, when the European Food Safety Authority, EFSA, stated that regular consumption of this soluble fiber contributes to the maintenance of normal blood cholesterol levels," Mikola remarks.
"A year later, in 2010, the EFSA acknowledged that consuming 3 grams of oat β‑glucan daily reduces the cholesterol level in the blood," Mikola continues. At the same time, the EFSA also approved another health claim about oat beta glucan: that it slows down the rise of the blood sugar level after a meal.
"The precise EFSA health claim is that the consumption of β‑glucan from oats as part of a meal contributes to the reduction of the blood glucose rise after that meal – if the food contains at least 4 grams of β‑glucan from oats for each 30 grams of available carbohydrates," Mikola recites.
How does oat beta glucan reduce cholesterol?
All in all, the EFSA has approved four health claims relating to oats or oat beta glucan[ix]. Mikola reminds that health claims on food products are an effective way to communicate the link between a food and a specific health benefit and thus help consumers choose healthy diets.
"High cholesterol is a risk factor in the development of coronary heart diseases, so adding oat β‑glucan to your diet is certainly something I would advise doing," Mikola affirms.
But how exactly does oat beta glucan help reduce cholesterol? Mikola underlines that while the precise mechanism is unknown, the widely accepted explanation among researchers is fairly simple:
When digested, oat beta glucan dissolves and creates a highly viscous, gum-like gel in the gut. The gel reduces the absorption of cholesterol-rich bile acids and dietary cholesterol, excreting them in the feces. This in turn promotes the production of new bile acid, which reduces the cholesterol in the blood.
"To put it a bit crudely in layman's terms, when you consume enough oat β‑glucan, you eventually flush a portion of your cholesterol down the sewer," he clarifies.
