Relating Food Emulsion Structure and Composition to the Way It Is Processed in the Gastrointestinal Tract and Physiological Responses: What Are the Opportunities?

Abstract

The gastrointestinal tract is a complex and intricate machinery to process and absorb nutrients from food in a highly controlled and efficient way. One of the main purposes is to provide essential nutrients (proteins, fats, and carbohydrates) to the blood in a soluble form that can be further processed by the body. For this reason, the food is digested by various enzymes and brought into a state in which it can be absorbed by the small intestines. The proliferation of obesity in the Western world has motivated several research groups to study the digestion process, ultimately to control food intake by food design. This paper reviews the literature related to the digestion of food emulsions, describing in detail the organization and function of the various organs of the gastrointestinal tract, the way these organs cooperate and how this cooperation is regulated by physiological signals. The insight may help to cross the bridge toward designed food structuring from a food-engineering and physical-chemical perspective. Based on the physiological understanding of fat digestion, opportunities to affect the digestion of triglycerides by food structure and composition, stability under stomach conditions, and delayed digestion and absorption in the small intestine are identified.

A novel infant milk formula concept: Mimicking the human milk fat globule structure

“…This results in a stable and reproducible product with a long shelf life but with a fat droplet architecture strongly different from that in HM. Studies showed that the type of emulsifier as well as the size of emulsion droplets affect lipolysis [13][14][15]. In preterm infants, hydrolysis of human milk triglycerides was higher than that of triglycerides of a standard IMF with small fat droplets coated by proteins [16].…”

Specific food structures supress appetite through reduced gastric emptying rate

“…In a study comparing stable and unstable emulsions (21), gastric emptying was slower for an acid-stable emulsion, although the rate of energy delivery to the duodenum was not different up to 2 h. The acid-stable emulsion also induced increased fullness and decreased hunger and appetite. The use of emulsion systems with tailored release properties is increasingly being considered to control hyperlipidemia (3,24,33).These studies demonstrate the importance of food structure in the modulation of postprandial satiety-related physiology. Indeed, foods such as fresh whole fruits and vegetables, whole grain bread, and meat are digested more slowly and as a consequence are more satiating than foods that have a softer, more highly processed structure (25).…”

“…Type 2 diabetes is associated with weight gain, and both diabetes and weight gain are associated with aging. A range of approaches have been used to address the increase in obesity based around dieting, but the continued increase in the prevalence of obesity suggests that a greater understanding of the mechanisms involved in controlling appetite and satiety is needed (33). Nutrition studies have started to look in detail at how specific macroscopic food structures are broken down in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and how they release their nutrients (12,23,30).…”

“…In a study comparing stable and unstable emulsions (21), gastric emptying was slower for an acid-stable emulsion, although the rate of energy delivery to the duodenum was not different up to 2 h. The acid-stable emulsion also induced increased fullness and decreased hunger and appetite. The use of emulsion systems with tailored release properties is increasingly being considered to control hyperlipidemia (3,24,33).…”

Food Structure Engineering for Nutrition, Health and Wellness

“…Emulsion systems with increased structural complexity are seen as a mechanism by which lipid uptake may be controlled (Golding and Wooster 2010;van Aken 2010). As already mentioned in Porter et al (2007), lipid digestion and the resulting colloidal structures can be designed to elicit particular physiological properties, such as the targeted delivery of bioactives.…”