Rye bran bread intake elevates urinary excretion of ferulic acid in humans, but does not affect the susceptibility of LDL to oxidation ex vivo.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Copper in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Firstly, to evaluate the bioavailability and potential antioxidative effects in humans of ferulic acid from rye.

Secondly, to evaluate urine levels of ferulic acid as a possible biomarker of the ordinary dietary intake of ferulic acid.

Why It Was Studied

Rye bread contributes an important part of the whole grain intake in the Scandinavian diet.

Ferulic acid is the major phenolic compound in rye bran and is an antioxidant in vitro and may, therefore, contribute to cardioprotective effects of whole grain consumption.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 18 women taking part.

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults and older adults, women only.

The researchers determined the urinary excretion of ferulic acid in 18 postmenopausal women after a dietary intake of rye bran or an inert wheat bran (control) in a crossover study (2 x 6 weeks with 4 weeks washout).

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized and crossover study.

Because people in this Copper study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

In the crossover set-up each of the women took both Copper and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

The potential antioxidative effect of the rye bran intervention was investigated by measuring low-density lipoprotein (LDL) susceptibility to copper oxidation ex vivo.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Antioxidants, Biological Availability, Biomarkers, Bread, Copper, Coumaric Acids and Lipoproteins, LDL.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and crossover study of Copper in 18 women.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2004 (European journal of nutrition), a journal based in Germany.

More context: the related Copper (Supplement) library page, all human trials.