Cellulose derivatives belong to a wide group called dietary fibres. These have shown to provide health benefits in the diet by lowering blood cholesterol. Dietary fibres bind bile salts in the duodenum which are sequestered and eventually excreted. Hence, dietary fibres reduce bile re-absorption, inducing the synthesis of bile salts from blood cholesterol to restore the content lost. Despite their known function within the intestinal tract, to our best knowledge there is a dearth in literature regarding fundamental studies on their potential to control lipid digestion. There is a need to better understand the effect of digestion conditions in real complex food emulsions containing dietary fibres and the underlying molecular effects on lipolysis. Commercial cellulose derivatives have been chosen as stabilisers due to the highly functional properties which are important in the manufacture process such as: surface activity, binding, clinging, thickening, and a wide range of viscosities. Accordingly, the goal of this work is to study the main interactions of oil-in-water emulsions stabilised with hydrophobically modified celluloses with duodenal components present during the lipid digestion process. Namely, competitive adsorption at the oil-water interface and interactions in the bulk have been looked at by means of interfacial tension and differential scanning calorimetry. This combination of techniques has shown to be successful in the study of interactions of bile salts with polymeric surfactants.1 Beginning to quantify the dynamics of interactions in the bulk and the impact that has on the interfacial properties, related to access for digestion, provides new insights for designing rules for application. These new findings can be exploited in tailoring both, novel food and pharmacological matrices with improved functional properties.
Dr. Timothy J. Foster tim.foster@nottingham.ac.uk
References
1. A. Torcello-Gómez, J. Maldonado-Valderrama, A.B. Jódar-Reyes & T.J. Foster, 2013, Langmuir, 29, 2520-2529.
