Explore the vast range of titles available.

•Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) refers to diseases that cause inflammation of the intestinal wall.•Flaxseed is a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids (α-linolenic acid; ALA), phytoestrogens and soluble fiber.•flaxseed and flaxseed oil, attenuate inflammatory markers, disease severity, blood pressure, and WC. The present study aimed to evaluate the possible effect of grounded flaxseed and flaxseed oil on serum levels of inflammatory markers, metabolic parameters, and the severity of disease in patients with UC. In this open-labeled randomized controlled trial, 90 UC patients were randomly assigned to one of the 3 groups for 12 weeks: grounded flaxseed (GF; 30 g/day), flaxseed oil (FO; 10 g/day) and control group. The weight, waist circumference, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, serum inflammatory markers (interleukin-6 (IL-6), interferon gamma (INF-γ), transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β), and Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate (ESR)), and fecal calprotectin were measured at the baseline and end of the study. Totally, 75 patients (43 men and 32 women) with a mean age of 31.54 ± 9.84 years participated in the present study. Comparing the change of the variables indicated a significant decrease in fecal calprotectin (P < 0.001), Mayo score (P < 0.001), ESR (P < 0.001), INF-γ (P < 0.001), IL-6 (P < 0.001), waist circumference (P = 0.02), Diastolic Blood Pressure (DBP) (P < 0.001), and Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP) (P < 0.001) and a significant increase in TGF-β (P < 0.001) and Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire-Short form (IBDQ-9) score (P < 0.001) in the GF and FO groups compared to the control. No difference was obvious between the FO and GF groups except for TGF-β. The present study showed that both flaxseed and flaxseed oil, attenuate inflammatory markers, disease severity, blood pressure, and WC. However, the effect of flaxseed on weight and BMI was not evident.

Flaxseed is an excellent source of valuable nutrients and is also considered a functional food. There are two types of hydrocolloids in flaxseed: flaxseed gum and proteins. Flaxseed gum exhibits emulsifying and foaming activities or can be used as a thickening and gelling agent. Due to its form of soluble fiber, flaxseed gum is related to many health benefits. Flaxseed proteins have various functional properties based on their physicochemical properties. While albumins possess the emulsion-forming ability, globulins better serve as foaming agents. Flaxseed proteins may also serve as a source of functional peptides with interesting biological and health-related activities. Functional properties and health-related benefits predetermine the application of these hydrocolloids, mainly in the food industry or medicine. Although these properties of flaxseed hydrocolloids have been recently and extensively studied, they are still not widely used on the industrial scale compared to other popular plant gums and proteins. The aim of this review was to present, discuss and highlight the recent discoveries in the structural characteristics and functional and biological properties of these versatile hydrocolloids with respect to factors affecting their characteristics and offer new insights into their potential applications as comparable alternatives to the other natural hydrocolloids or as the sources of novel functional products.

Long-chain n -3 fatty acids have been shown to regulate lipid metabolism and reduce fat accumulation in the liver. This trial investigated the effect of flaxseed oil, as a rich source of α -linolenic acid, on fatty liver and cardiometabolic risk factors in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The randomised, double-blind, controlled trial was performed on sixty-eight NAFLD patients who were divided into flaxseed ( n 34) and sunflower ( n 34) oil groups. Patients were given a hypoenergetic diet (−2092 kJ/d) and 20 g/d of the corresponding oil for 12 weeks. Fatty liver grade, liver enzymes and cardiometabolic parameters were determined. The intention-to-treat approach was used for data analysis. Fatty liver grade significantly decreased in both groups (−0·68 in flaxseed v . −0·29 in sunflower, P = 0·002). Alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase decreased in both groups ( P < 0·01). Also, significant reduction was observed in blood glucose ( P = 0·005) and fat mass ( P = 0·01) in the flaxseed and muscle mass ( P = 0·01) in the sunflower group. However, none of these alterations was significantly different between the groups. Weight, waist circumference and blood pressure were significantly decreased in both groups but only weight change was significantly different between the groups ( P = 0·01). IL-6 did not significantly change in either group but showed a significant between-group difference ( P = 0·03). Overall, the results showed that in the context of a low-energy diet and moderate physical activity, flaxseed oil may benefit NAFLD patients to improve fatty liver grade, weight and IL-6 compared with sunflower oil.

Flaxseed is emerging as an important functional food ingredient because of its rich contents of α-linolenic acid (ALA, omega-3 fatty acid), lignans, and fiber. Flaxseed oil, fibers and flax lignans have potential health benefits such as in reduction of cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, osteoporosis, autoimmune and neurological disorders. Flax protein helps in the prevention and treatment of heart disease and in supporting the immune system. As a functional food ingredient, flax or flaxseed oil has been incorporated into baked foods, juices, milk and dairy products, muffins, dry pasta products, macaroni and meat products. The present review focuses on the evidences of the potential health benefits of flaxseed through human and animals’ recent studies and commercial use in various food products.

Pasta production is a good opportunity for product innovation in different forms. The aim of this work was to assess the use of flaxseed components for pasta production. We examined the chemical composition and cooking quality, at different contents of flaxseed flour (FF) and flaxseed cake (FC), added for pasta processing. The analysis showed that the addition of flaxseed components to the dough caused a substantial difference in the International Commission on Illumination color model (CIE) parameter, compared to control samples. The samples of pasta with FF and FC were darker, redder, and less yellow than the control. The minimum cooking time for the enriched pasta was longer than that for the control pasta, although cooking losses were lower. The increasing content of flaxseed components did not significantly change the weight and volume increase index. The enrichment of pasta with 23% FF and 17% FC yielded good quality pasta. The results of the chemical composition of the flaxseed-enriched pasta indicate considerably enhanced nutritional quality, particularly the levels of protein, fat, and dietary fiber of the pasta, without affecting its quality. Moreover, flaxseed cake can be an important source of nutritional ingredients for pasta production, although it is a by-product of the oil cold pressing technology.

Enzymatically synthesized hexyl (C6) and palmitoyl (C16) esters of sinapic acid were incorporated into microencapsulated flaxseed oil as antioxidants. The antioxidant activity and lipid oxidation retarding effect of the sinapic acid esters were tested during storage using different methods. Sinapate-enriched microencapsulated flaxseed oils were found to be more stable against oxidation during storage compared to microencapsulated and free oil. In addition, the results of antioxidant analyses and lipid oxidation measurements revealed the superiority of palmitoyl sinapate (longer alkyl side chain) over hexyl sinapate. The polarity of the analysis medium provides information on the antioxidant properties and stability of the added sinapic acid esters since sinapic acid alkyl esters gave different results when tested directly in the analysis medium. The results showed that lipophilic esters of sinapic acid, especially palmitoyl sinapate, can be successfully used as antioxidants to stabilize microencapsulated flaxseed oil.

Pasta assortments fortified with high quality foods are a modern nutritional trends. This study, explored the effects of fortification with linseed flour (LF) and linseed oil (LO) on durum wheat pasta characteristics. Wheat flour semolina was replaced with 5%, 10% and 15% of LF or 1%, 2.5% and 5% of LO. Control pasta CP (without LF or LO addition), LF-enriched pasta LFP 5%, LFP 10% and LFP 15% and LO-enriched pasta LOP 1%, LOP 2.5% and LOP 5% was compared for the proteins, fat and phenolic contents and fatty acids (FA) profile. Impact on lipid oxidation and sensory evaluation were also determined . Fortification of pasta with LF improved significantly ( p  < 0.05) the contents of protein, fat and phenolic compared to CP whereas the enrichment of pasta with LO resulted in a significant increase ( p  < 0.05) in the content of fat and a significant decrease in protein and phenolic contents. All the formulations decreased the saturated FA percent and increased the polyunsaturated FA percent with enhancement of omega-3 FA content. Antioxidant activity measured by FRAP and DPPH assays was improved after the fortification. For lipid oxidation, the replacement of semolina by LF or LO promoted an increase ( p  < 0.05) on TBARS values in level-dependent manner. Regarding sensory evaluation, the two types of fortification did not affect the taste; flavor and aroma of cooked pasta, but LOP 5% showed the highest score of the overall acceptability. The results recommended the possibility of producing pasta supplemented with LF or LO (even at a level of 15% and 5% respectively) as a functional food.

Background and aims Drought is one of the leading constraints to linseed production globally. Understanding the genetic diversity and physiological response of linseed to drought stress is essential for developing drought-resilient varieties. Therefore, multi-environment phenotyping of 2,576 linseed accessions from National Genebank of India was undertaken in the present study to identify novel donors imparting drought tolerance. Methods The germplasm was screened in two water regimes (irrigated and rainfed) in three locations for two consecutive seasons based on 16 morpho-agronomic and 4 physiological traits. To capture the diversity of entire collection, a small subset ‘Reference Set for Drought Tolerance’ (RSD) comprising 200 accessions was constituted based on the Stress Tolerance Indices. Results Combined analysis indicated significant reduction in early plant vigour (47.37%), leaf area index (29.95%), plant height (7.70%) and thousand seed weight (24.33%) under the water-stressed environment compared to well-irrigated conditions. Contrarily, mean days to 50% flowering were increased from 24.97 under well-watered conditions to 34.12 under rainfed conditions indicating late onset of flowering. The stress-induced reduction in physiological traits translated into yield losses causing a drastic reduction of 49.01% in mean seed yield/plant under rainfed conditions. The quality evaluation indices based on summary statistics, correlation, and PCA indicated that RSD effectively represented the diversity of entire collection for drought tolerance traits. Conclusions The results demonstrated existence of vast natural variations in linseed collection for drought tolerance. The RSD and novel high-yielding drought-tolerant genotypes identified in this study will be a potential resource in linseed improvement for moisture-constrained areas.

A positive effect of flaxseed mucilage (FSM) addition (at concentrations of 0.1, 0.2, and 0.4%) to MRS and milk whey nutrient medium on the survival, auto-aggregation, hydrophobicity, adhesive, and antioxidant properties of L. bulgaricus, L. fermentum AG8, and L. plantarum AG9 was shown. It was found that the AG 8 strain became less sensitive to 7% NaCl concentrations (the cell survival rate in the experiment with 0.4% flaxseed mucilage increased by 10% compared to the control). Cultivation in the presence of FSM led to an increase in auto-aggregation, especially in the case of AG8 (from 60 to 85%) and AG9 (from 50 to 80%) strains, and an increase in hydrophobicity was seen: for L. fermentum AG8, it was from 30% to 62–72%, for L. fermentum AG9 from 30% to 35–42%, and for L. bulgaricus from 20% to 30%. The adhesive properties of the L. fermentum AG8 and L. plantarum AG9 cells increased from 0.472 to 1 nN (nanonewton) and from 0.630 to 2.5 nN, respectively. The presence of flaxseed mucilage increased the total phenolic content in cell-free supernatants after 48 h of cultivation. The concentration of 0.1–0.2% FSM increased the OH-scavenging activity of milk whey nutrient medium cell-free supernatants of strains AG8 and AG9 by 7–10%. Flaxseed mucilage can serve as a promising bioactive additive that elevates antioxidant activity, increases the resistance and survival of Lactobacillus cells in the gastrointestinal tract, and leads to the synthesis of lipase and α-glucosidase inhibitors. The co-culture of these lactic acid bacteria in the presence of FSM and milk components in the form of whey leads to the synthesis of lipase and α-glucosidase inhibitors more than the culturing on de Man, Rogosa, and Sharpe broth.

Background: The sum of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, 20:5 ω3) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22:6 ω3) in erythrocyte membranes, termed the omega-3 index, can indicate suboptimal intake of omega-3 fatty acids, a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). To study the effects of fatty acid supplementation, we investigated the rate of incorporation and clearance of these fatty acids in erythrocyte membranes and plasma after intake of supplements. Methods: Twenty study participants received supplementation with either fish oil (1296 mg EPA + 864 mg DHA/day) or flaxseed oil (3510 mg alpha-linolenic acid + 900 mg linoleic acid/day) for 8 weeks. We obtained erythrocyte membrane and plasma samples at weeks 0, 4, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 24 and extracted and analyzed fatty acids by gas chromatography. Results: After 8 weeks of fish oil supplementation, erythrocyte membrane EPA and DHA increased 300% (P <0.001) and 42% (P <0.001), respectively. The mean erythrocyte omega-3 index reached a near optimal value of 7.8%, and remained relatively high until week 12. EPA and DHA showed greater increases and more rapid washout period decreases in plasma phospholipids than in erythrocyte membranes. Flaxseed oil supplementation increased erythrocyte membrane EPA to 133% (P <0.05) and docosapentaenoic acid (DPA, 22:5 ω3) to 120% (P <0.01) of baseline, but DHA was unchanged. In plasma phospholipids, EPA, DPA, and DHA showed a slight but statistically insignificant increase. Conclusions: Erythrocyte membrane EPA+DHA increases during relatively short intervals in response to supplementation at rates related to amount of supplementation. These results may be useful to establish appropriate dosage for omega-3 fatty acid supplementation.