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. 1984 Aug;25(8):811–815. doi: 10.1136/gut.25.8.811

Degradation of cellulose within the gastrointestinal tract in man.

J Kelleher, M P Walters, T R Srinivasan, G Hart, J M Findlay, M S Losowsky
PMCID: PMC1432572  PMID: 6430755

Abstract

14C-labelled cellulose was administered orally to 10 subjects without gastrointestinal disease and its absorption measured by faecal 14C excretion and 14CO2 in expired air. A mean of 57.2% of oral cellulose was excreted in the faeces and up to 14% (mean 7.5 +/- 4.4 1SD) of faecal radioactivity was water soluble. Whole gut transit time did not correlate with the quantity of 14C-cellulose excreted in the faeces. A significant quantity of 14CO2 appeared in the expired air as early as 30 minutes after administration of the labelled cellulose. The cumulative excretion of 14CO2 varied from 7.6-32.2% of the administered radioactivity but did not correlate with faecal 14C excretion. The present data show that a significant quantity of oral cellulose is metabolised within the human gastrointestinal tract and appears in the expired air as 14CO2.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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