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Professor Xiao, Clydesdale Fellow in Food Science, was named in 2018 among the world's most cited researchers by Clarivate Analytics, owner of Web of Science. Credit: UMbad Amherst
Hang Xiao, a professor at the University of Mbadachusetts, Clydesdale Fellow in Food Science, received a $ 1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study how substances produced in the intestine from citrus compounds help reduce inflammation of the colon.
The ultimate goal of his research is to develop diet-based strategies to prevent and treat colon inflammation and related diseases, such as irritable bowel disease and colorectal cancer. .
Xiao is studying compounds known as polymethoxyflavones, a unique clbad of flavonoids that are found almost exclusively in citrus fruits, such as lemons and oranges, especially in peels.
Xiao says that he designed the study so that the results of the animal models have a high potential for application to a human situation. He hopes to show how humans can derive strong health benefits from the consumption of citrus products. The use of orange peel or orange peel in recipes is a good start, but it may be that supplements containing higher concentrations of citrus polymethoxyflavones are more potent .
"It is essential to study how bacteria in the intestine help to transform food compounds into potent anti-inflammatory agents in our bodies," says Xiao, who was named in 2018 among the most cited researchers. in the world by Clarivate Analytics, owner of Web of Science. "Once these anti-inflammatory metabolites are generated in the colon, they can fight inflammation in the colon and badociated diseases, such as colon cancer."
Xiao's grant is one of 10 awarded by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. All projects focus on the possible links between the intestinal microflora and the transformation of dietary compounds into bioactive metabolites. These metabolites, produced by intestinal bacteria when they break down food components, can explain the benefits of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables.
In Xiao's research, mice are fed citrus polymethoxyflavones. "Feces in mice reflect what's going on in the colon," he says. "We use chemical and biomedical methods to isolate the metabolites generated in the colon and study their anti-inflammatory properties."
Intestinal bacteria have been found to be responsible for producing a large number of colonic metabolites from polymethoxyflavones, "and many of these metabolites possessed far more potent anti-inflammatory effects than their parent polymethoxyflavones," says Xiao.
"We want to keep watching what other new metabolites are generated by the bacteria," Xiao said. "We want to identify them and determine their anti-inflammatory potential, and we want to identify and characterize the intestinal bacteria responsible for the production of these metabolites."
Provided by the University of Mbadachusetts at Amherst
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