The New England Journal of Medicine presents a very thorough description of a common procedure used to test the effectiveness of starch blockers. Five participants between the ages of 25 to 34 were selected for this experiment. Firstly, the intestinal tract is flushed by ingestion of an electrolyte-containing solution. The amount of CrCl 3 in stool collections is evaluated for recovery and accuracy of the experiment. A stool collection is taken after the first meal, which is completely uninfluenced by starch blockers to refer to as a control.
Researchers assure that all calorie consumption was controlled and uniform.
The next morning, the participants are each given the same amount of water, spaghetti, tomato sauce, and buttered bread to eat, a meal that contains 97 grams of starch. After 14 hours of fasting, the intestinal tract was once again cleansed. Stool samples from each of the subjects in the time between the test meal and the last intestinal flush are collected and analyzed by means of using a bomb calorimeter 1 . The stool collections took place over three days. First, the control feces sample is collected.