Beneficial Effect of Yacon Tuber

Beneficial Effect of Yacon Tuber

*This article is the Scientific Popular version of our publication entitled

Comparison of Yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius) Tuber with Commercialized Fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) in Terms of Physiology, Fermentation Products and Intestinal Microbial Communities in Rats.  

https://doi.org/10.12938/bmfh.32.167

What is yacon??? https://www.healthbenefitstimes.com/yacon/

Yacon looks similar to Dahlia Flower, that’s right, both of them are belong to the one family, Asteraceae. Yakon (Smallanthus soncifolius) is a native plant from Andes region in South America. Yacon commonly grown up well in highland area. Yacon tuber is commonly considered as fruit because of big, juicy dan sweety taste of its tuber. Traditionally, yacon (leaves and tuber) is used as herbal to cure diabetes, indigestion and renal disease. Scientific studies in human and animals found that yacon tuber could decrease food transit time in colon, it means that it can remedying constipation (mainly obese people and pre-menopause women), reducing blood lipid, immunomodulator, and increase bioavailability of iron in the blood. Yacon contains oligofructose known as prebiotic. Prebiotic is a food sources for probiotic bacteria (beneficial bacteria). Unfortunately, limited studies about beneficial effects of yacon tuber for intestinal microbes and their fermentation products.

We conducted study to know the effects of yacon tuber on rat’s intestinal microbes and compare its effects to commercialized Fructooligosaccharides (FOS). Mixed food contains 10% yacon tuber (equivalent to 5% commercialized FOS) was given for 28 days. As result, yacon diet altered intestinal bacteria communities form first week, confirmed by higher contentration of short chain fatty acids and larger size of cecum. The abundant fermentation in the intestines created a selective environment for the intestinal microbiota, which included Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium pseudolongum, Bifidobacterium animalis and Barnesiella spp. according to identification with culture-independent analysis, 16S rRNA gene PCR-DGGE combined with cloning and sequencing. Barnesiella spp. and B. pseudolongum were only found in the rats fed the yacon diet. The genus Barnesiella has not previously been reported to be associated with yacon or FOS fermentation. As conclusion, yacon tuber is potentially develop as functional food in the future.