British scientists have developed an ingredient that makes foods more filling, and say initial tests in overweight people showed that it helped prevent them from gaining more weight.
The ingredient, developed by researchers at London's Imperial College and at the University of Glasgow, contains propionate, a natural substance that stimulates the gut to release hormones that act on the brain to reduce hunger.
Propionate is produced naturally when fiber in the diet is fermented by microbes in the gut. The new ingredient, inulin-propionate ester (IPE), provides much larger amounts of propionate than people can generate in a normal diet.