ABSTRACT
Over the past decade, there has been increasing interest in understanding and controlling the fate of food emulsions within the human gastrointestinal tract (GIT) after they have been ingested (Lundin et al. 2008, Singh et al. 2009, McClements 2010). There are a number of reasons for this increased interest in the gastrointestinal fate of food emulsions. First, the rate and extent of lipid digestion within the GIT inuence a number of parameters related to human health, such as blood lipid proles, feelings of satiety and satiation, and caloric density (Halford and Harrold 2012, Douaire and Norton 2013, Mackie et al. 2013, Peters et al. 2014). Second, emulsions are being developed as delivery systems for bioactive agents (such as vitamins, minerals, and nutraceuticals), and the bioavailability and bioactivity of these agents depends on the behavior of the emulsion droplets within the GIT, for example, the rate, extent, and location of digestion and absorption. Consequently, emulsion-based delivery systems can be developed to improve the bioavailability of encapsulated bioactive agents. This chapter therefore reviews the potential gastrointestinal fate of emulsions within the human GIT. The main focus of the chapter will be on oil-inwater (O/W) emulsions because these have been the most studies and because bulk fats and water-in-oil emulsions are usually converted into O/W emulsions within the mouth, and therefore behave like O/W emulsions within the rest of the GIT.
