Figure 1: FCs reduce food intake and increase faecal SCFA concentrations.

(a) Body weight gain and (b) average weekly food intake of mice fed with either a HFD supplemented with the highly fermentable fibre inulin (HF-I) or a relatively non-fermentable fibre cellulose (HF-C). Body weight gain and average food intake significantly reduced in the HF-I group, **P<0.01, **P<0.05 based on two-sided, unpaired Student’s t-test(n=12 per group). (c) Total and acetate-only faecal SCFA concentrations obtained from HF-C and HF-I fed mice **P<0.01 based on two-sided, unpaired Student’s t-test (n=6 per group randomly selected from the n=24 cohort). (d) The biodistribution of carbon-11 (¹¹C) i.v. acetate as determined using PET scanning. Image depicts a fasted mouse following i.v. infusion. Image shows uptake in the brain, liver and heart. (e–g) Brain, liver and heart uptake of i.v. and colon infused ¹¹C-acetate as expressed as a percentage of the initial dose administered. No significant differences, when compared by GEE and Mann–Whitney U-test, were observed between i.v. administrations in the fed or fasted state, but there is a slower increase when the ¹¹C-acetate was colonically infused (P<0.001; n=3–4 per group).