Bread is changing. Or at least, the bread on shelves across Europe could change within a year.
Thanks to a new “supercharged” fibre, bakers and smoothie makers have the green light from the European Food Safety Authority to add inulin-propionate ester (IPE) to their products. It works by tricking your body into releasing GLP-1. The same hunger-killing hormone targeted by expensive drugs like Wegovy.
But you get it from food.
“We showed in a randomised-controlled trial that daily consumption prevents weight gain,” says Gary Frost from Imperial College London. He’s been studying this stuff for over a decade. In middle-aged people, it stops the pounds piling on. In younger folks, it does something different.
It shifts body composition.
They end up with more lean mass.
Here’s how it works.
Dietary fibre hits the large intestine and your gut bacteria go to town on it. They break it down into short-chain fatty acids. Your gut senses those acids. It fires off signals to release appetite-suppressing hormones like PYY and GLP-1.
The problem?
Math.
Animal studies suggest you need around 80 grams of standard fibre daily to get that hormonal trigger. Most of us aim for 25 to 30 grams. And mostly we fail even that.
“The only option previously was sticking a tube down your throat or up from the other end, which isn’t particularly pleasant,” says Douglas Morrison.
He knows. He helped create the workaround.
IPE solves the math problem. Just 10 grams does the trick.
In a trial of 60 overweight people aged 40 to 65, IPE raised blood levels of GLP- and PYY after just that 10-gram hit. Those participants ate less. Over six months, nobody on the IPE dose gained significant weight. Seventeen per cent of the control group did.
Was it perfect?
No. There was flatulence. Just like with any high-fibre diet. But everyone lost some air.
The younger trial told a slightly different story.
Two hundred and seventy overweight people, aged 20 to 40. One year later, the scales didn’t care about the IPE. No difference in overall weight gain.
But the body composition did care.
The IPE group added more than a kilogram of fat-free mass. On average.
A Fifteen-Year Odyssey
Why did it take so long to get here?
IPE wasn’t born in a corporate lab. It started as an academic nuisance fifteen years ago. Frost wanted to study propionate, a short-chain fatty acid. You can’t just feed propionate to people.
It tastes vile.
It also gets absorbed way too high up in the digestive tract. It never makes it to the large intestine where the magic happens.
So Morrison got creative. He attached the propionate to inulin, a common plant carbohydrate. The combo, IPE, sails through the stomach and small intestine untouched. Bacteria in the large intestine finally crack it open. The inulin becomes regular fibre. The propionate releases, supercharging the fibre dose to trigger those hormone floods.
“It took 12 years to get EFSA approval,” Frost admits. “I don’t know another academic group that’s taken something from the bench straight into the food chain.”
Now, the regulatory hurdle is cleared in the EU. The UK regulators are expected to follow soon.
Frost and Morrison are talking to food companies. Smoothies, cereals, breads. They predict products hitting shelves within 12 months. Most people won’t taste a thing, though a tiny fraction will notice a bitter edge.
Skeptics Are Watching
It’s not a unanimous celebration.
Brendan Gabriel from the University of Aberdeen sees mixed signals. The study showing weight prevention in over-40s was small. Tiny.
The younger study? Bigger numbers. But the method used couldn’t distinguish if the new “lean mass” was actually muscle or just other non-fat tissue.
Still, Gabriel isn’t dismissing it. Fibre is good. IPE might support gut health even if the weight claims need more proof.
So, what’s next?
The researchers are looking at GLP-1 drug users. Can IPE help them keep muscle while they lose fat? Can it stop the weight creep when people come off the drugs?
The food on your plate is about to get a lot more complex. Whether that means a better body or just more digestive noise remains to be seen.
For now, keep your eyes on the label.
“We’re just starting to see this,” says Frost.
