Olestra
Nat Cooper

We have seen how researchers used these simple chemical concepts to invent and develop olestra and we will use these principles ourselves to evaluate and decide on nutritional issues

The Difficulties of Diet

Type "diet" into Amazon.com's search utility. You will get more that 10,000 citations of books that attempt to outline the relationship of health - mental, physical and spiritual, weight loss or gain, longevity and other life factors to the foods we eat. Diet is perhaps the most studied and least understood of the relationship of science and health. Olestra is but a single factor in the multifold challenge of understanding human life and behavior!

Studies with Placebo Eating Drills
Long term Benefits of a Reduction of Fat Consumed

Studies with Placebo Eating Drills: Another issue regarding olestra is whether consumers would actually reduce the amount of fat and calories by eating olestra or would they compensate for these lesser amounts of fats and calories by eating greater amounts or different types of food.

Procter & Gamble designed several experiments to test this issue. The important aspects of these experiments were that they included an olestra containing meal or a regular fat meal followed by two or more regular fat meals where subjects could eat any amounts and types of foods. In one experiment full fat meals were supplied to some subjects while others received olestra mixed with full fat. These different meals amounted to a calorie reduction of about 15 percent. In the meals that followed the full fat or mixed olestra, full fat meals, subjects did not appear to eat additional amounts of food or fats in an effort to compensate for the lower calorie and food content found in the olestra/regular fat meals.

In another study, young, average weight males, were given a baseline diet for one week that contained 40% fat, 45% carbohydrate, and 15% protein. During the two weeks following the baseline diet, one third of the fat was replaced by olestra and the diet now consisted of 30% fat, 52% carbohydrate and 18% protein. The subjects were then allowed to have greater or lesser amounts of this olestra-containing diet. Results showed that the caloric intake decreased by 35%, and the fat intake decreased by 28%. The average weight loss was 1.6kg.

Long term Benefits of a Reduction of Fat Consumed:  The fact that compensation does not occur can lead to some long term potential weight reduction calculations.

If one calculates the amount of fat replaced at just 3 grams per day, this would lead to an annual calorie reduction of about 10,000 Calories which could, assuming no other compensation, prevent a weight gain of about 2.8 pounds per year or 28 pounds in 10 years. But a review of diet vs. weight studies incorporating olestra containing foods seems to show little weight chage in the studied subjects.

These and other studies showed that subjects did not compensate for the amount of fat and calories that were reduced by the olestra containing diets. This indicates that olestra can help individuals to reduce both fat intake and calories as part of their diet plans. At this point, we have looked at a variety of issues surrounding olestra, both as benefits and controversial topics.

We will summarize many of these topics in the next section so let’s return to the Olestra Concept Map.