We all need good gut bacteria to absorb nutrients and boost our immunity shield against infection. But they need the right food or prebiotics, which are fibres found in fruits and vegetables. But what if you can’t have enough of roughage? Then you could take a prebiotic supplement that has been developed from fruit peels by researchers at the Gujarat Biotechnology University (GBU) and nourish your good bacteria. It is likely to be introduced in the Indian market soon.
pectic oligosaccharides, a kind of complex carbohydrate, from a sustainable and widely available source. That happens to be pectin — a natural, soluble fibre found in the peel (rind) of citrus fruits, apart from apples and a few others. They narrowed down their choice to Kinnow Mandarin, a hybrid orange citrus fruit. The findings were published in the Elsevier journal in August. The researchers, who have filed for a
provisional patent, say they have enhanced the supplement with an enzyme to come up with a powder-based product that, when consumed as a dietary supplement of four grams a day, for 21 days, can help in the proliferation of good gut bacteria.
Why the Kinnow Mandarin?
Dr Ravindra Pal Singh, corresponding author of the paper along with Raja Bhaiyyaa, Dipak Gayen, and Sukesh Chander Sharma, says they used the fruit because of its abundance in the vicinity of their research site in Punjab. “We used about 50 kg of peel waste of the citrus fruit, Kinnow Mandarin (citrus reticulata), in developing this product, which was procured from a local fruit vendor in Mauli Baidwan village of Mohali in Punjab,” he says. He had earlier conducted a similar study on apple peel and says that had their field work been in Maharashtra, he would have used Nagpur oranges.
“We extracted pectin from the peel and used various chemically and enzymatic methods to turn it into a specific and structurally definable pectic-oligosaccharide (POS). We then tested it on a human faecal sample of a 30-year-old healthy male with no sickness or antibiotic intake in the last six months.
We enriched the human faecal sample with POS dietary supplement and used Quantitative Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RTQ-PCR) to see whether the amount of good gut bacteria had increased. It did,” he says.
Why are fruit peels a friend of good gut bacteria?
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The high fibre content in fruit peels acts as a prebiotic, which feeds and promotes the growth of beneficial gut microorganisms like lactobacillus. When gut bacteria ferment the fibre, they break down polyphenols and convert them into a more usable form for the body. Polyphenols can help strengthen the intestinal barrier and help good bugs survive the digestive tract. The fermentation process in the gut can lead to the production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which are beneficial for gut and systemic health. The fibre in peels helps in digestion and maintains regular bowel movements.
Whom can such a supplement benefit?
This is especially for those who have been consuming antibiotics for a long time and need to restore their gut health. “Our doctors and dieticians could prescribe such a product when their patient cannot have dietary fibres,” says Dr Singh.
Given that the supplement has been derived from complex carbohydrates, but carbohydrates all the same, researchers have taken care to remove glucose monosaccharides from their product through an enzymatic process. “There is no glucose content in the supplement at all, keeping in mind that the patient could be living with diabetes or obesity,” says Dr Singh.