Adequate intake values for dietary fibre based on faecal bulking indexes of 66 foods.

OBJECTIVE

To determine an adequate daily intake value for dietary fibre (AIdf) based on faecal bulking indexes (FBIs) for 66 foods of known total dietary fibre (TDF) content.

DESIGN

FBIs of 66 foods were measured and expressed as wheat bran equivalents (WBEfb) per 100 g of food. A daily WBEfb requirement for humans was calculated from faecal bulk generated per gram of wheat bran TDF in humans, using a critical faecal mass of 200 g/day for protection against large bowel disease. TDF content was regressed against WBEfb content for all 66 foods assayed, and an AIdf value obtained by substituting the calculated human WBEfb requirement into the regression equation.

METHOD

FBI was measured using a validated rat assay, with eight large (400+/-50 g) rats per group, preadapted to dietary fibre, and fed adequate restricted diets containing test foods at inclusion rates consistent with human intakes. The critical faecal mass was based on epidemiological studies, and the faecal bulk generated per gram of wheat bran TDF was the mean of 27 published values.

RESULTS

WBEfb requirements for humans were calculated to be 90 g/day, corresponding to a faecal output of 200 g/day. The regression equation relating WBEfb measured in the FBI assay to TDF in all 66 foods was TDF=0.491WBEfb + 3.19, R2=0.81 Substituting the human WBEfb requirement of 90 g into the regression equation gave an AIdf value of 40.9 g TDF/day.

CONCLUSION

The AIdf value of 40.9 g TDF/day based on faecal bulking supports the AIdf of 38 g TDF/day recently set by the Institute of Medicine (USA), for young men, based on protection against heart disease. The AIdf value is obtained from the relation between the effects of foods and their content of mixed function, plant cell wall dietary fibres within the food matrices, and should not be used to guide intakes of extrinsic functional polysaccharides.