Cereal Chem 54:110 - 119.  |  VIEW ARTICLE
Gastrointestinal Response to Oat and Wheat Milling Fractions in Older Women.

S. Meyer and D. H. Calloway. Copyright 1977 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

Several indexes of gastrointestinal function were measured in aged women fed a control formula diet and test meals containing wheat bran, oat bran, oat gum, and the nondigestible sugar, raffinose. Test substances were fed for three successive days, separated by two days of formula diet. The wet weight of feces was significantly increased over baseline levels with all four test meals. The dry weight of feces was not increased with raffinose; with the brans, fecal dry matter was increased several-fold beyond the weight of crude fiber fed, but not as much as the total weight of bran fed (25 and 50 g). Intestinal hydrogen production increased markedly as a result of fermentation of raffinose and wheat bran by enteric flora. Gas production was increased only moderately with oat bran, and very little with oat gum. The relation of these effects to the probable composition of the dietary fiber is discussed.