Volume 88, Issue 2, August (2002), pp. 111-116 © The Author 2002

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Whole grain food intake elevates serum enterolactone

David R. Jacobs Jr^1,2*, Mark A. Pereira³, Katariina Stumpf⁴, Joel J. Pins⁵, Herman Adlercreutz^4
1Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA ²Institute for Nutrition Research, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway ³Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA ⁴Institute for Preventive Medicine, Nutrition, and Cancer, Folkhälsan Research Center, and Division of Clinical Chemistry, University of Helsinki, Finland ⁵Department of Family Practice and Community Health, University of Minnesota Medical School, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

 (Received 8 June 2001–Revised 18 February 2002–Accepted 11 March 2002)

Both intake of whole grain and higher levels of serum enterolactone have been related to reduced risk for CHD and some cancers. Because lignans are prevalent in the outer layers of grains, these findings may be related. We carried out a crossover feeding study in which overweight, hyperinsulinaemic, non-diabetic men (n 5) and women (n 6) ate, in random order, wholegrain foods or refined-grain foods in a diet with 30 % energy from fat. The dominant whole grain was wheat, followed by oats and rice. All food was supplied by the investigators and each diet lasted for 6 weeks, with an intervening washout period of 6–9 weeks. Serum enterolactone concentrations were higher when eating the wholegrain than the refined-grain diet by 6·2 (within person SE 1·7) nmol/l (P=0·0008). Most of the increase in serum enterolactone when eating the wholegrain diet occurred within 2 weeks, though the serum enterolactone difference between wholegrain and refined-grain diets continued to increase through 6 weeks. Serum enterolactone concentrations can be raised by eating a diet rich in whole grains.

Keywords:
Phyto-oestrogens: Feeding study: Wholegrain food