Effective Delivery of Bioactives in Functional Foods
The first wave of nanotechnology applications in foods is focused on enhanced uptake and bioavailability of bioactives. The efficacy and absorption of bioactives delivered orally may be hampered by environmental degradation, enzyme attack, insolubility in transport fluids, and low residence time in the GI tract. Delivery vehicles in the form of emulsions, liposomes, solid lipid nanoparticles, and polymeric nanoparticles have been developed to increase bioavailability of various bioactives. Critical developments made in the area of nanodelivery applications for drug delivery can be translated and applied in food applications.
On Tuesday morning from 8:30–10:00 am in Room 283, Session 227 Designing Nanoscale Vehicles for Effective Delivery of Drugs and Bioactives in Functional Foods will cover topics ranging from information transfer between the drug and food industries, design of nano-delivery systems for food use, and improved efficacy and bioavailability of bioactive compounds via nano-sized delivery systems.
Presenter Edgar Acosta, Ph.D., Univ. of Toronto, will share his recent work on in-vitro uptake of self-emulsifying systems and the use of ternary phase diagrams to guide the formulation of self-emulsifying (nanoemulsions) for oral delivery of food bioactives.
Researcher Cristina M. Sabliov, Ph.D., La. State Univ., will focus on delivery of a model lipophilic vitamin, vitamin E, with anionic poly (lactic-co-glycolic) acid nanoparticles and with muco-adhesive cationic poly (lactic-co-glycolic) acid/chitosan nanoparticles. The data show that the developed nanodelivery systems resulted in an effective and controlled delivery of the vitamin to the small intestine, while increasing the passive intestinal uptake of vitamins, which ultimately results in improved vitamin bioavailability.