JP2010047606A - Constipation dissolving agent - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide materials for foods, medicines, etc., which exert improving effects for constipation, intestinal environment, etc., are highly safe and widely applicable, and do not spoil the texture. <P>SOLUTION: A constipation dissolution agent, an agent for improving intestinal environment, an enhancer of intestinal mucus production, and an enhancer of production of intestinal short chain fatty acids have an effective component of hydroxypropylated starch. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a material useful as a food or a medicine, which has an effect of improving constipation, improving the intestinal environment, promoting the production of intestinal mucus, and the like.

In recent years, the pH in the intestine tends to shift to the alkaline region due to changes in eating habits, stress, drugs, stomach, intestines, liver disorders, and the like. In this way, when the intestinal environment is inclined to alkalinity, the growth of Clostridium perfringens, Escherichia coli, enterococci, etc. is activated, and intestinal rot, production of toxins and carcinogens by bacteria, etc. occur.
In addition, due to the lack of dietary fiber intake, many modern people often experience constipation, and colon cancer and rectal cancer, where constipation is a risk factor, are also increasing.
Therefore, from such a social background, measures against constipation and improvement of the intestinal environment are extremely important.

  Conventionally, in order to improve constipation and intestinal environment, intake of useful bacteria such as bifidobacteria and lactic acid bacteria and intake of a high dietary fiber diet have been recommended. For example, food materials related to the prevention and improvement of constipation include water-insoluble dietary fiber typified by wheat bran, water-soluble dietary fiber typified by indigestible dextrin, and digestion resistant starches such as high amylose corn starch. There are known effects such as softening by increasing the amount and frequency of fecal excretion and the water content of feces (see, for example, Non-Patent Documents 1 to 4).

  However, in order for food materials such as conventional water-insoluble dietary fiber, water-soluble dietary fiber, and digestion-resistant starch to exhibit the above physiological effects, they must be ingested at a high dose for a long period of time. Furthermore, when foods and drinks are produced using them, it is often difficult to contain them in foods in sufficient amounts because they often impair the texture of foods and drinks, such as appearance, taste, texture, and smoothness. However, there are problems that application fields are limited, and that it is difficult to continue taking such foods and drinks for a long time.

Hydroxypropylated starch is known to have high transparency, excellent film-forming properties, low-temperature storage stability, and high freezing / thawing stability. US approved for use in food by FDA (For example, see Non-Patent Document 3).
However, it has not been known so far that hydroxypropylated starches have an effect of improving constipation or improving the intestinal environment.

Am J Gastroentero 1 1987 82 (12): 1259-63 Health and Nutrition Food Research 1999 Vol.2 No.1 p44 Am J Clin Nutr 1995 62 (1): 121-30 Journal of Japanese Society for Home Economics 1998 49 (9): 985-992

  The present invention relates to providing materials such as foods and pharmaceuticals that exhibit the effect of improving constipation, intestinal environment, etc., have high safety, have a wide range of applications, and do not impair the texture.

  As a result of searching for a material having physical properties different from those of dietary fibers represented by conventional resistant starch, cellulose and resistant dextrin and effective for improving constipation and intestinal environment, the present inventors have found that hydroxypropyl. The modified starch increases the amount of stool and its moisture content with a small intake, increases the short-chain fatty acids in the intestine and lowers the intestinal pH, and increases the expression of mucin in the intestine It has been found that it is useful as a food and pharmaceutical material that has the effect of causing constipation and improving the intestinal environment.

  That is, the present invention provides a constipation improving agent, an intestinal environment improving agent, an intestinal mucus production promoting agent and an intestinal short chain fatty acid production promoting agent comprising hydroxypropylated starch as an active ingredient.

  The constipation-improving agent of the present invention is useful as a food, a pharmaceutical, etc., exhibiting constipation improvement, intestinal short-chain fatty acid production promotion, intestinal environment improvement such as intestinal pH and intestinal mucus production promotion effect . In particular, hydroxypropylated starch or a derivative thereof, which is an active ingredient, is excellent in safety to the human body because it uses starch as a raw material, and is easy to gelatinize, so it has a wide range of application to foods and drinks, bread, noodles, baked goods (Cakes, cookies, etc.), jellies, beverages, etc., are less likely to impair their original texture. Moreover, since it is excellent in freezing resistance and hardly changes in quality even after thawing, it is highly useful when used as various foods and drinks.

The hydroxypropylated starch of the present invention can be obtained by hydroxypropylating starch or modified starch by a conventional method. Specifically, it can be obtained by reacting propylene oxide with starch.
National Frigex (from Tapioca, National Starch and Chemical), National 1658 (from Corn, National Starch and Chemical), Thermal Flow (from Waxy Corn, National Starch and Chemical), Thermtex (from Waxy Corn, National Commercial products such as Starch and Chemical Co.) can also be used.

  Examples of the raw material starch include waxy corn starch, corn starch, wheat starch, rice starch, glutinous rice starch, potato starch, sweet potato starch, tapioca starch, sago starch and the like. It is more preferable that the content is -100%, more preferably 90-100%, because the paste liquid has high transparency, and when applied to foods and drinks, its appearance is not impaired and the application range is widened. Among these, waxy corn starch and tapioca starch are preferable as the raw material starch.

  The “hydroxypropylated starch” in the present invention includes a hydroxypropylated starch obtained by combining other processing treatments. Processing that can be combined includes esterification of acetic acid, octenyl succinic acid, phosphoric acid, etc., etherification by carboxymethyl etherification other than hydroxypropylation, trimetaphosphate, hexametaphosphate, phosphorus oxychloride, adipic acid , Epichlorohydrin and the like, crosslinking treatment using a conventional crosslinking agent, oxidation treatment, acid treatment, bleaching treatment, wet heat treatment, heat treatment, enzyme treatment, etc. may be mentioned, of which one or more of them may be combined good. Of these, esterification treatment is preferred, and phosphorylation treatment, particularly phosphoric acid crosslinking treatment is preferred. As the degree of phosphorylation treatment, the bound phosphorus content is in the range of 0.0001 to 2%, preferably 0.0001 to 0.5%, more preferably 0.0001 to 0.2%. Is preferable from the viewpoint of texture and the like.

  As the degree of hydroxypropylation, the degree of substitution (number of hydroxypropyl groups per anhydroglucose residue in starch) is preferably 0.001 to 1, more preferably 0.05 to 0.5. Yes, and preferably 0.1 to 0.3.

  The hydroxypropylated starch can be produced from starch with high purity and relatively low cost by a simple process. Moreover, it is highly safe and has no sense of incongruity when used in various foods, medicines, pet foods, etc., as compared with conventional dietary fiber and resistant starch. Moreover, since it is excellent in refrigeration resistance, it can have the advantage that alteration by thaw is unlikely to occur.

And since the hydroxypropylated starch has the action of increasing the amount of stool and its water content and softening the stool, as shown in the examples below, colon cancer with constipation as a risk factor It exerts effects such as prevention of rectal cancer. Secondly, it has the effect of increasing the short-chain fatty acids in the intestinal tract and lowering the intestinal pH, thus preventing colon cancer and rectal cancer resulting from deterioration of the intestinal environment, promoting calcium absorption, etc. Demonstrate the effect. Thirdly, since it has the action of increasing the expression level of mucin in the intestine, the mucous membrane protects the intestinal mucosa and can exert effects such as prevention of colitis, colon cancer and rectal cancer.
Therefore, the hydroxypropylated starch of the present invention is used as a constipation improving agent, intestinal environment improving agent, intestinal mucus production promoter, intestinal short chain fatty acid production promoter (hereinafter referred to as constipation improving agent, etc.) It can be a material for animal food or medicine.

The constipation-improving agent and the like of the present invention can be ingested by mixing one or more hydroxypropylated starches alone and in humans and animals, and in various foods, medicines, pet foods and the like. As food, it can be applied to beauty foods, illness foods and foods for specified health use based on physiological functions such as improvement of constipation, improvement of intestinal environment, promotion of Ca absorption, and protection of gastrointestinal mucosa. When used as a pharmaceutical, for example, oral solid preparations such as tablets and granules, and oral liquid preparations such as oral liquids and syrups can be used.
When preparing an oral solid preparation, an excipient, if necessary, a binder, a disintegrant, a lubricant, a coloring agent, a corrigent, a corrigent and the like are added to the hydroxypropylated starch of the present invention. Thereafter, tablets, coated tablets, granules, powders, capsules and the like can be produced by conventional methods. Moreover, when preparing a liquid preparation for oral use, a liquid preparation, a syrup, an elixir, etc. can be manufactured by a conventional method by adding a corrigent, a buffer, a stabilizer, a corrigent and the like.

  The blending amount of the hydroxypropylated starch to be blended in each of the above preparations is usually 5 to 100% by weight, preferably 20 to 100% by weight, and more preferably 30 to 100% by weight.

  The dose (effective intake) of the constipation improving agent of the present invention is preferably 0.01 g / kg body weight or more per day, particularly 0.1 g / kg body weight or more, more preferably 0.4 g / kg body weight or more. It is preferable to do this.

Test Example 1 Constipation improving action, intestinal environment improving action, intestinal mucus production promoting action Corn starch was obtained from National Starch and Chemical Company. As hydroxypropylated starch, commercially available National 1658 (corn-derived, National Starch and Chemical Company), Thermoflow (waxy corn-derived, National Starch and Chemical Company), and the above-mentioned corn starch were converted into J Nutr 1998 128 (5 ): Hydroxypropylated by the method described in 848-54.

SD rats (male, 8 weeks old) were grouped into 5 animals per group, and were bred for 1 week using diets prepared with the composition shown in Table 1 using various starches. During this time, the dry weight and moisture content of feces were measured every day. After breeding, the rats were sacrificed, and the pH of the cecum contents and the amount of short-chain fatty acids (total amount of acetic acid, propionic acid and butyric acid) were measured. Further, the rat colon was excised, and the mucin gene (MUC3) expression was quantified by Northern blotting.
The pH was measured with a pH meter after diluting the cecal contents with distilled water, and the short chain fatty acid was diluted with 0.05N H2SO4 ten times with HPLC (eluent: 0.12N sulfuric acid). Column: IC sep TCE-10N 300 (Tongras Genocic), quantified at a flow rate of 0.4 mL / min.
Table 2 shows the fecal excretion, average fecal water content, cecal pH, cecal short-chain fatty acid content, and mucin expression (relative amount when corn starch is 100).

  From the results of Table 2, in rats fed with a diet containing 5% of hydroxypropylated starch (derived from corn and waxy corn), compared to mice fed with a diet formulated with raw starch (corn starch), It can be seen that the amount of feces is large, the water content of feces is high, and the effect of improving constipation is observed. Moreover, since the concentration of short-chain fatty acids in the cecum is high, it can be seen that the pH in the cecum is low and an effect of improving the intestinal environment is observed. Furthermore, the expression level of mucin (MUC3) is also large, indicating that an intestinal mucus production promoting effect is observed.

Claims (4)

  Use of hydroxypropylated starch to promote intestinal mucus production (except for use as a human medicine).   Use of hydroxypropylated starch for the prevention of colitis, colon cancer and / or rectal cancer (except for use as a human medicine).   Use of a hydroxypropylated starch as an active ingredient of a food, characterized by having an intestinal mucus production promoting action.   Use of hydroxypropylated starch as an active ingredient in foods characterized by having preventive action against colitis, colon cancer and / or rectal cancer.