ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION Fibre in beverages can enhance perceived satiety Marika Lyly Æ Kirsi-Helena Liukkonen Æ Marjatta Salmenkallio-Marttila Æ Leila Karhunen Æ Kaisa Poutanen Æ Liisa La ¨hteenma ¨ki Received: 12 August 2008 / Accepted: 23 February 2009 / Published online: 21 March 2009 Ó Springer-Verlag 2009 Abstract Background A high intake of dietary fibre has been suggested to support the regulation of energy intake and satiety, which could contribute favourably to the increasing obesity problem. Aim of the study To investigate the effects of three fibres differing in chemical and physical properties on perceived satiety and hunger-related attributes. Methods A total of 19 healthy volunteers, age 18–30, mean BMI 23.2 kg/m 2 participated in the study. Mea- surement of food and satiety-related perceptions with ten attributes was performed by using 10-unit graphic intensity scales during a 120 min period after the ingestion the sample. The attributes evaluated were satiety, hunger (unipolar and bipolar scale), appetite, fullness, desire to eat something/sweet/savoury/the sample food and thirst. The sample foods used were a beverage without fibre, a guar gum beverage, a wheat bran beverage, an oat b-glucan beverage and wheat bread was used as the control. The fibre content of the samples was 0 g (beverage without fibre), 2.4 g (wheat bread), 7.8 g (guar gum) or 10.5 g (wheat bran and oat b-glucan beverage) per 400 g/1,000 kJ portion. Results The area under curve (AUC) for perceived satiety was higher (169 vs. 83 cm min; t test P = 0.026) and the desire to eat was lower (AUC -179 vs. -83 cm min; t test P = 0.008) for the guar gum beverage as compared to the beverage without fibre. Also the beverage with oat b-glu- can increased fullness and showed a trend of increasing perceived satiety and decreasing the desire to eat more than the beverage without fibre. Conclusions Our results support the idea that dietary fibre in beverages can enhance their perceived satiety and decrease the desire to eat more than a beverage without fibre. Keywords Satiety response Á Beverages Á Dietary fibre Á Guar gum Á Oats Á Wheat Á b-Glucan Introduction Obesity is becoming an increasingly common health problem worldwide [26]. In addition, obesity is one of the risk factors in metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes, requiring a lot of resources from the public health care system [26]. Effective tools for stopping this progress are actively being sought. The intake of dietary fibre has been linked with the regulation of energy intake and satiety and therefore could contribute favourably to the obesity problem. A meta- analysis of 22 studies concluded that a 14 g increase in fibre intake is linked to a 10% reduction in energy intake and 1.9 kg reduction in weight during 3.8 months [8]. In overweight or obese persons, the reductions were even M. Lyly (&) Á M. Salmenkallio-Marttila Á K. Poutanen Á L. La ¨hteenma ¨ki VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, P. O. Box 1000, 02044 VTT, Espoo, Finland e-mail: marika.lyly@vtt.fi Present Address: K.-H. Liukkonen Finnish Food Safety Authority Evira, Mustialankatu 3, 00790 Helsinki, Finland L. Karhunen Á K. Poutanen Department of Clinical Nutrition, Food and Health Research Center, University of Kuopio, P. O. Box 1627, 70211 Kuopio, Finland 123 Eur J Nutr (2009) 48:251–258 DOI 10.1007/s00394-009-0009-y