Bi-compartmental elderly or adult dynamic digestion models applied to interrogate protein digestibility

Abstract

The world's population is inevitably ageing thanks to modern progress; however, the development of food and oral formulations tailored to the needs of the elderly is still in its infancy. In vitro digestion models offer high throughput, robust and practically ethics free evaluation of the digestive fate of ingested products. To date, no data have been made publicly available to facilitate the development or application of an in vitro model mirroring the physicochemical conditions of the elderly gastrointestinal system. This study reports the development of a novel and highly bio-relevant in vitro model based on two serially connected bioreactors recreating the dynamic conditions of the adult or elderly alimentary canal. This report and its supplementary material describe in detail the set-up of the system, the applied physicochemical parameters and the development of the controlling software. These are intended to openly depict a versatile platform, which could assist future efforts to develop age-tailored oral formulations. SDS-PAGE analyses of samples collected from the in vitro digestion of β-lactoglobulin, α-lactalbumin and lactoferrin suggest the bioaccessibility of "slow digesting" and "fast digesting" proteins identified in adult models do not necessarily maintain this trait under elderly gastro-intestinal conditions. Overall, this study brings forward a new generic yet advanced model that could facilitate age-tailoring the digestive fate of liquid formulations.

Extending in vitro digestion models to specific human populations: Perspectives, practical tools and bio-relevant information

“…absorption and diffusion) and rheological aspects (i.e. mixing) (Blanquet et al, 2004;Dekkers, Kolodziejczyk, Acquistapace, Engmann, & Wooster, 2016;Kong & Singh, 2010a;Levi & Lesmes, 2014;Mercuri, Lo Curto, Wickham, Craig, & Barker, 2008;Shani-Levi, Levi-Tal, & Lesmes, 2013;Tharakan, Norton, Fryer, & Bakalis, 2010;Yoo & Chen, 2006). To date, both advanced and simple IVD models have be used to investigate a variety of systems.…”

“…However, the target population of the study focused solely on women in the ages of 50e70. In relation to IVD models recreating elderly digestive conditions, two recent studies have been identified to apply in vivo data to the modelling parameters (Denis et al, 2016;Levi & Lesmes, 2014). The first reports the set-up of a dynamic gastro-intestinal elderly (>70 years old) model based on commercial bioreactors with details on all the parameters used and the rationale of their selection (Levi & Lesmes, 2014).…”

“…In relation to IVD models recreating elderly digestive conditions, two recent studies have been identified to apply in vivo data to the modelling parameters (Denis et al, 2016;Levi & Lesmes, 2014). The first reports the set-up of a dynamic gastro-intestinal elderly (>70 years old) model based on commercial bioreactors with details on all the parameters used and the rationale of their selection (Levi & Lesmes, 2014). The second, reports an adaptation of the TNO gastrointestinal model (TIM) to the specific digestive conditions of the elderly (>65 years old) and is used to study meat protein dynamic digestion (Denis et al, 2016).…”

The 4th International Conference on Food Digestion

“…As interest in research involving simulating digestion continues to grow, efforts are being made to validate the methods used against in vivo data (Bornhorst, Roman, Dreschler, & Singh, 2014). In addition, efforts are being made to extend the research to other more specific groups such as infants (de Oliveira et al, 2016) or the elderly (Levi & Lesmes, 2014). Given the amount of research that is going on around Europe, it is clear that in the near future there will be papers showing the extent to which in vitro methods such as the Infogest static model can be used to predict in vivo outcomes.…”

In vitro gastric digestion of protein-based structured food : An engineering approach

“…Moreover, the aging of the population raises new challenges. The elderly are more vulnerable to nutritional deficiencies, due to reduced appetite, higher prevalence of chronic diseases, as well as changes in the gastrointestinal function (Salles 2007;Levi and Lesmes 2014).…”