UC Davis-Led Startup Develops Novel Tech to Increase Dietary Fiber's Health Benefits

The consumption of dietary fiber is linked to many health benefits including a reduction in cancer, chronic inflammatory disease, metabolic disease, cardiovascular disease and even depression. But fiber is not easy to add into food because it causes taste and texture issues, ultimately discouraging people from consuming it.

To address this challenge, UC Davis researchers are paving a path to commercialize a new technology that they hope will make dietary fiber easier to add into food and more acceptable to the consumer. The novel depolymerization technology can chop up fiber from long polysaccharides into small, bioactive chains of carbohydrates, called oligosaccharides. The process doesn't change the structure of the fiber, but makes it soluble, digestible and palatable.

The method, first published in Nature Communications, uses small amounts of hydrogen peroxide and catalytic amounts of metal like iron or copper to depolymerize the polysaccharides.

“We put together several food processing steps and created this way of breaking down the polysaccharides to bioactive oligosaccharides,” said Carlito B. Lebrilla, a Distinguished Professor Chemistry, and Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, who developed the method alongside Matt Amicucci, a former doctoral student with the university. “The big advantage is that we’re making a bioactive compound, which is food grade, safe and natural.”

The research provided the foundational technology platform for startup BCD Bioscience.

Read more about this research work on the UC Davis Office of Research website.