In vitro behaviour of curcumin nanoemulsions stabilized by biopolymer emulsifiers – Effect of interfacial composition

Abstract

a b s t r a c tNanoemulsions present a high potential to be used in food products due to their advantages over conventional emulsions (e.g. higher stability to gravitational separation and droplet aggregation and enhanced bioavailability of encapsulated compounds), however their application to foods is hindered by some concerns about potential risks associated with their ingestion. The knowledge of the behaviour of nanoemulsions as well as the fate of bioactive compounds encapsulated within them in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract is of utmost importance to assess their safety for human consumption and to produce delivery systems that provide an optimized bioactivity of the encapsulated compound. In this work, a dynamic gastrointestinal model, comprising the simulation of stomach, duodenum, jejunum and ileum, was used to evaluate the behaviour of curcumin nanoemulsions stabilized by biopolymer emulsifiers (lactoferrin and lactoferrin/alginate multilayer structure) under GI conditions. The interfacial characteristics of curcumin nanoemulsions had a significant impact on their physicochemical stability within the simulated GI tract. Also, results suggested that alginate coating may be able to control the rate of lipid digestion and free fatty acids adsorption within the GI tract, but the encapsulated lipid is digested at the same extent, releasing the lipophilic bioactive compound. This work contributes to an improved understanding of how multilayer nanoemulsions behave within the GI tract and this knowledge will be useful for the optimization of delivery systems that improve the physicochemical stability of emulsions in food products, while still releasing encapsulated lipophilic bioactive compounds.

Enhanced Curcumin Bioavailability through Nonionic Surfactant/Caseinate Mixed Nanoemulsions

“…The model introduced by Oomen et al. () was used as starting point with some modifications (Minekus et al., ; Pinheiro, Coimbra, & Vicente, ; Zou et al., ; Zou et al., , ).…”

“…The simplified digestion process has been simulated by replicating the physiological digestive status of the various fluids (saliva, gastric and intestinal juices), including the residence time for each phase. The model introduced by Oomen et al (2003) was used as starting point with some modifications (Minekus et al, 2014;Pinheiro, Coimbra, & Vicente, 2016;Zou et al, 2015;Zou et al, 2016aZou et al, , 2016c.…”

Preparation of Curcumin Nanodispersions Using Subcritical Water – Screening of Different Emulsifiers

“…A dynamic light scattering (DLS) particle size analyzer (Nanotrac Wave, Microtrac, USA) was used to determine particle size, PDI, and zeta potential values of the prepared nanodispersions [20]. The PDI as a quantity of the width of the particle size distribution ranged from 0 to 1 for monodispersion and broad (poly) distribution, respectively [9,21].…”

Modern drug delivery strategies applied to natural active compounds

“…Emulsion-based delivery systems can be used efficiently to optimize curcumin unfavorable physical-chemical features [22,23,[25][26][27][28]. New self-microemulsifying drug delivery systems (SMEDDS) have been successfully developed to improve the solubility, oral absorption and bioavailability of curcumin.…”

“…Furthermore curcumin, once formulated into a microemulsion, showed a higher oral absorption, bioavailability and physical stability during storage, compared to pure curcumin [25]. Other authors recently focused their attention on a stable nano-preparation and in vitro digestion kinetics of curcumin [26,28]. The results obtained from the nanoformulation produced by Sari and coworkers, for instance, indicated that the encapsulated curcumin was very stable and not released from the delivery system by the action of pepsin [26].…”