What Is Levan and Why Is It So Important?

• Levan is a unique and beneficial fiber not commonly found in Western diets.
• Incorporating levan into your diet has a variety of potential benefits, including promoting beneficial bacteria and contributing to a healthier gut lining.
• ZBiotics Sugar-to-Fiber makes it easy to boost your fiber intake and diversity through the creation of levan, helping you achieve better gut microbiome health without major dietary changes.

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In today’s fast-paced world, maintaining gut health can be challenging, especially when our diets lack essential fiber. An estimated 95% of Americans fail to meet the daily fiber intake recommendation of 25 to 35 grams (instead averaging only 15 grams), and the average American diet does not support a healthy gut microbiome (Quagliani, Felt-Gunderson, 2016).

We recently announced Sugar-to-Fiber, featuring the newest genetically engineered probiotic in the ZBiotics lineup. It’s a probiotic that converts sucrose (table sugar) into levan (a specific type of fiber). And while many fibers can help address our lack of adequate fiber intake, we specifically chose levan for a reason. So let's dig a little deeper into the science of levan, and why it's good as a daily fiber.

Fiber diversity matters, and each type plays a unique role

There are many types of dietary fiber, and we need a diversity of them to support our health, so what are they exactly? Dietary fibers are essentially long chains of sugar molecules linked together (if you ever wondered why fiber is listed within “carbohydrates” on a Nutrition Facts label, that’s why). Each fiber’s properties depend on the sugars that make it up, the chain length, and whether it forms complex structures.

For example, cellulose, a common fiber found in plant cell walls, is made up of linear chains of glucose molecules, where each chain can form bonds with other chains. This complex structure is what makes cellulose a good source of insoluble fiber. Because of its composition, size, and structure, cellulose does not dissolve in water and cannot be fermented (i.e., used as food) by the microbes in our gut microbiome. Instead, this fiber stays mostly intact as it passes through the gastrointestinal tract and speeds up our bowel movements. Fibers like cellulose are important to support bowel health and regularity. Examples of foods high in cellulose fiber include root and leafy veggies, legumes, apples, and pears (Lanza & Butrum, 1986).

Many fibers are built entirely of glucose, but glucose is not the only sugar found in different types of fiber. For example, fructans and galactans are types of fiber created by long chains of other sugar molecules—fructose and galactose, respectively. But we can’t stop there! Some fibers are made up of multiple types of sugar molecules—not just one. Suddenly, the different configurations seem endless.

What is levan?

Levan is a type of dietary fiber known as a fructan. Specifically, it’s a polysaccharide made of linked fructose molecules (Tanaka, Oi, & Yamamoto, 1980). In other words, levan is made up of long chains of fructose with branching points. Like cellulose, the composition, size and structure of levan contribute to how our bodies utilize this fiber. It is soluble, so it dissolves in water, and it is also a prebiotic (fermentable by the microbes in our gut). Unlike cellulose, these characteristics of levan actually slow down digestion, which supports nutrient absorption, a healthy gut microbiome, and short-chain fatty acid production.

While levan may be a new concept to many of us in the United States, it has been consumed in Japan for centuries, primarily through natto, a fermented soybean dish known for its health-promoting properties. Levan is believed to play a key role in this traditional fermented food’s ability to support our health (Öner, Hernández, Combie, 2016). As modern research continues to explore its broader benefits, levan is gaining even more attention as a dietary fiber supporting our well-being.

Benefits of levan

There are many fibers with a variety of benefits, so why did we specifically engineer a probiotic designed to provide you a daily dose of levan?

It supports the gut microbiome

As a fermentable fiber, levan can feed the good microbes in your gut. Our gut microbiome consists of thousands of species of microbes, and it is important to support them so that they, in turn, can support us better.

It increases fiber diversity

All of those thousands of microbe species are different, and not all of them eat the same food—i.e., the same type of fiber. In order to keep them all happy and in balance, we have to consume a variety of different dietary fibers. Because levan is not commonly found in the modern diet, any addition of levan inherently increases the diversity of fibers you will consume daily. Think of it like a potluck dinner. The greater variety of food on the table, the more likely everyone will find something they are excited to eat.

Levan is currently the subject of many scientific inquiries and a growing body of research indicating that it may offer broader health benefits (Bahroudi et al., 2020; Xu et al., 2023; Dahech et al., 2013; Liu et al., 2020). There are a myriad of healthy advantages to consuming fiber, especially when you have a variety of fibers in your diet (Ranaivo et al., 2022; Slavin, 2013). By merging a balanced diet with a daily packet of Sugar-to-Fiber, you are supporting not just your gut microbiome but all the ways in which your gut microbiome supports you.

Unlock the power of levan through genetic engineering

At ZBiotics, we’re harnessing the power of genetic engineering to create probiotics that perform specific, targeted functions—like producing levan, a unique dietary fiber. We’re excited about how this advancement in science could help support gut health and overall well-being beyond what we can achieve with diet alone.