Gum arabic-stabilized emulsion systems: Underlying mechanisms for enhancing storage and digestion stability of...

Although the benefits of gum arabic (GA) in developing emulsion systems are well known, the mechanism underlying its stability-enhancing effect of GA in emulsion systems stabilized with curcumin remains unclear. This study used GA-stabilized emulsion system, containing 10 wt% medium-chain triglycerides and 0.1 % curcumin. Results demonstrated that when the GA concentration exceeded 0.5 wt%, the interface layer reached saturation, maintaining a consistent thickness of approximately 34.8 nm. The curcumin-containing emulsion demonstrated good stability during storage at room temperature and heating treatment, effectively protecting the curcumin. However, during in vitro intestinal digestion, the formation of salt and protein bridges caused the aggregation of oil droplets, resulting in an increase in the droplet size to 975.2 nm, while the curcumin content remained stable. Additionally, the in vitro release rate of encapsulated curcumin (44.0 %) was significantly higher than that of free curcumin (19.5 %). In conclusion, this study elucidated the stability-enhancing mechanism of GA-stabilized emulsions for curcumin and highlighted the potential of GA in developing emulsion systems for the encapsulation of these compounds.