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Objective: To investigate the effect of a breakfast cereal containing inulin on blood lipids and colonic ecosystem in normolipidemic young men.

Setting: Department of Food Science and Microbiology, University of Milan, Italy.

Subjects: Twelve healthy male volunteers, age 23.3±0.5 y, body mass index (BMI) 25.7±1.2 kg/m 2 (mean±sem).

Interventions: Subjects consumed daily, for three periods of four weeks, 50 g of a rice-based ready-to-eat cereal (placebo) and the same cereal containing 18% inulin (test) in substitution of their habitual breakfast, then returned to the habitual diet (wash-out). They followed no other dietary restrictions.

Results: No changes in body weight, dietary habits, faecal and bile acid output, faecal short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) and faecal pH, were observed at the end of each period, whereas plasma total cholesterol and triacylglycerols significantly decreased at the end of test period by 7.9±5.4 (P< …