Scientists have developed a new food additive that can help to prevent weight gain. The ingredient has been added to the EU Novel Food List, indicating that it is considered safe for human consumption. Obesity rarely develops overnight.
More often, it begins with a small, almost invisible energy imbalance, just a few excess calories each day that gradually accumulate into significant weight gain over the years. Researchers in the United Kingdom are now exploring whether a specially designed food ingredient could interrupt that process before it becomes difficult to reverse.
Developed by scientists at Imperial College, London, and SUERC, the Centre for the Isotope Sciences at the University of Glasgow, the ingredient is known as inulin propionate ester (IPE).
The dietary fibre is designed to enhance a natural effect of fiber-rich foods by stimulating appetite-regulating signals in the gut, potentially helping people feel fuller for longer and consume fewer excess calories.
IPE has now been added to the European Union’s List of Authorised Novel Foods, following a regulatory assessment of its safety for human consumption. The white powder could eventually be incorporated into familiar products such as smoothies, cereal, nutritional shots, and bread, or taken on its own as a supplement.
Rather than treating obesity after it has developed, IPE is intended as a preventive intervention. Its developers hope it could help curb the slow, persistent calorie surplus that drives long-term weight gain, offering a food-based alternative to medicines designed primarily for weight loss.
Chair in Nutrition and Dietetics at Imperial College London’s Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, Professor Gary Frost said: “A small calorie surplus each day will lead to significant weight gain over time.
Even one extra kilo a year in young adults is enough to create serious weight problems by middle age. We already know that a higher fiber intake can counter this, but we also know that most people find it difficult to take in enough fiber and are falling far short of the recommended intake levels.”
The central challenge was not simply adding fiber. It was delivering the right signal to the right part of the gut. In randomized controlled trials, the scientists found that about 10 grams of IPE per day can help regulate appetite and prevent weight gain.
IPE combines inulin, a natural fiber found in chicory and onions, with propionate, a naturally occurring short chain fatty acid. Short-chain fatty acids are produced when gut bacteria break down fiber.
Propionate can activate receptors in the colon that stimulate appetite-regulating hormones, which are chemical messengers that help tell the brain the body has had enough food.
IPE was built to deliver propionate directly to those receptors in the colon, strengthening the gut’s normal bacterial fermentation process and making the fullness signal more targeted. Professor Douglas Morrison of SUERC, University of Glasgow, said: “We have brought together two natural ingredients to stimulate appetite-regulating hormones at exactly the right site in the gut.
Although GLP-1 receptor agonists have shown great results in helping people lose weight, IPE could help stop the kind of slow, steady weight gain that makes those drugs necessary.” Scientists develop food ingredient that may prevent obesity
