DIGESTION

Author: SERRANO CASASOLA JOSÉ CARLOS ENRIQUE.
Year: 2005.
University: COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID.
Place of defense: FACULTAD DE FARMACIA.
Place of preparation: FACULTAD DE FARMACIA, DEPT. NUTRICIÓN Y BROMATOLOGÍA I.

Summary: In recent years a growing number of studies linking a diet rich in plant foods with a decreased risk of suffering from a variety of chronic diseases. Based on these epidemiological evidence, scientific interest has focused on the analysis and discovery of natural compounds in foods that may possibly have some connection with the decline in chronic diseases. Among these compounds, known as bioactive compounds, antixoidantes as polyphenols, and carotenoids have raised a variety of research and clinical trials. The knowledge of their content in alimetnos is large and increasingly are developing new methods for identifying and most ocmpuestos bioactive it is possible to determine their dietary intake. However, resutlados obtained provided contradictory information. On the one hand, high doses of bioactive compounds isolated seem to increase the risk of chronic diseases (for example, the consumption of high doses of beta-carotene in smokers people and increased incidence of lung cancer), other compounds show In vitro antioxidant properties but are not detected in plasma, the bioavailability of most compounds is still unknown and there are still many in identifying compounds. On the other hand, some metabolites, metabolic products of colonic some bioactive compounds, appear to be those responsible for the biological effects observed. With its true effectiveness bioactiva in the body after ingestion, depends largely on the bioavailability and synergies that may have with other types of bioactive compounds. Knowing the content of ocmpuestos bioactive in foods is not sufficient, as most of these compounds are bioavailable or modified during the process of digestion and rely on the extraction processes that are incomplete and not physiological. The bioavailability is an important step in determining the possible effects of a compound bioactivo in the body, however, in vivo studies are too expensive, so the development of in vitro methods for the analysis of the bioavailability of compounds bioactive are a potentially useful tool for determining the degree of bioavailability of ocmpuestos bioactive. Our research group has developed several techniques to determine the degree of digestibility of plant foods through methods Fraction Indigerible and Fermentation Colónica that simulate the physiological conditions of the processes of digestion in the small intestine and bulk respectively. With the use of these two tools of analysis it is possible to determine the potential availability of bioactive compounds and determine the site in the intestinal tract where it can be bioavailable. This thesis presents a discussion of the potential amount of polyphenols, and carotenoids in the diet that are liberated from the food matrix throughout the digestive process and the possible physiological effects they might have from the content of antioxidant capacity of the compounds released .