Beta glucan Oat Beta glucan Purity of oat beta glucan: 40%-70% Appearance: white fine powder (1,4) type, a (1,3) type Beta glucan Oat Beta glucan. Purity of oat beta glucan: 40%-70%. Appearance: white fine powder. Molecular linkages can be of a (1,4) type, a (1,3) type and a (1,6)
linkage. These are important because each linkage type creates a
different molecular shape for the Beta glucan and may account for
their function inside the body. When looking at Beta glucan derived from oats, the research has
focused almost exclusively on only two positive effects of this
type of Beta glucan. Those two effects are that on cholesterol and
blood sugar challenged individuals. More than one study has shown
that feeding an individual or animal dietary Beta glucan from an
oat source will lower the cholesterol by 9%. Other studies
confirmed that only certain types of people will respond to dietary
oat fiber and still others show that cooking the oat-derived Beta
glucan markedly decreased the effectiveness of the soluble fiber.
Cooking the oats may destroy some of the linkage bonds in the
molecule. Research on blood sugar challenged individuals showed lower insulin
and blood sugar levels when a person ate oat-derived Beta glucan as
compared to control subjects. The mechanism of action of this
product against high blood sugar is unknown. In addition, oat-derived Beta glucan seems to increase the amount
of bile acids secreted in human test subjects. Bile acids come from
the liver and gall bladder and contain a significant amount of
cholesterol.