Resumen de In vitro approach of dietary and host related factors affecting digestion of animal-origin foods under cystic fibrosis disease
Among the available methodologies to study food digestion, in vitro digestion models have raised as a valid procedure. In vitro digestion consists of simulating the digestion process in the laboratory, by reproducing the physiological conditions in terms of digestive fluids composition (electrolytes and enzymes), pH, temperature, mechanical forces and duration of the oral, gastric and intestinal stages.
Addressing the study of nutrient digestion is of special relevance in pathologies coursing with pancreatic or hepatic alterations, which are associated with compromised intestinal lipid digestion due to reduced secretion of pancreatin, bicarbonate and bile salts. This is the case of Cystic Fibrosis along with pancreatic insufficiency, and the patients suffering this condition have to follow pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy, the exogenous supply of encapsulated pancreatin. However, the dose of this supplement should be adjusted to the specific characteristics of foods, and no valid method was available for such purpose. To tackle this challenge, the EU-funded project MyCyFAPP succeed to develop a method to adjust the optimal dose the enzyme supplements used in the therapy. The present doctoral thesis was conducted as a relevant part of this project.
Concretely, this thesis aims at addressing the study of lipid digestion in foods to generate new knowledge regarding nutrient digestion in animal origin dietary sources (egg, meat and meat products, cheese and fish) in the context of Cystic Fibrosis. To address this goal a static in vitro digestion model was applied. The role of inherent-to-food characteristics (resulting food matrix structure from processing) and host related factors (pH and bile salts concentration and pancreatin concentration) were explored as determinants of lipolysis in animal-origin foods.
Along the four chapters presented, focused on egg, meat, cheese and fish, a common experimental design was applied to study lipolysis, proteolysis and matrix degradation. In each study, different processing techniques applied to the assessed foods allowed for evaluating the effect of inherent-to-food properties on the study outcomes as well. The results have contributed to the development of a new evidence-based method to optimise pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy, and inform the scientific community about new insights on the behaviour of different foods undertaking the digestion process.
