Abstract
Dietary fiber supplementation has been studied as a promising strategy in the treatment of obesity and its comorbidities. A systematic review and meta-analysis were performed to verify whether the consumption of yeast beta-glucan (BG) favors weight loss in obese and non-obese rodents. The PICO strategy was employed, investigating rodents (Population), subjected to the oral administration of yeast BG (Intervention) compared to animals receiving placebo (Comparison), evaluating body weight changes (Outcome), and based on preclinical studies (Study design). Two reviewers searched six databases and the grey literature. We followed the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, and the protocol was registered on PROSPERO (CRD42021267788). The search returned 2467 articles. Thirty articles were selected for full-text evaluation, and seven studies remained based on the eligibility criteria. The effects of BG intake on body weight were analyzed based on obese (n = 4 studies) and non-obese animals (n = 4 studies). Even though most studies on obese rodents (75%) indicated a reduction in body weight (qualitative analysis), the meta-analysis showed this was not significant (mean difference −1.35 g—95% CI −5.14:2.45). No effects were also observed for non-obese animals. We concluded that the ingestion of yeast BG barely affects the body weight of obese and non-obese animals.
Highlights
A total of 2654 reports was initially identified after searching in all databases. Studies had their titles and abstracts read and 30 potential references were appraised. Of these 30 articles, 23 were excluded because: not used yeast species (n = 6); involving other types of challenge (n = 7); used model streptozotocin-induced diabetes (n = 3); administered BG mixed with other agents (n = 3); administered probiotics (n = 2); not evaluated body weight (n = 1); and performed short BG
Yeast was the only source of BG, and body weight was a secondary outcome.The
Onlyyeast yeast used in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and and in only one of outcome
Summary
Lima 6 , Vanessa Pardi 7 , Ramiro M. Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil-. Agrarian Sciences Institute, Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri (UFVJM), Unaí BR-38610-000, Brazil
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