The Role of Food Structure on Fatty Acid Bioaccessibility: A Decade of TIM-1 Simulated Digestion Studies in Review

Food structure has emerged as a critical concept with wide-ranging implications for nutrition and health. Studies with in vitro digestion models are enabling a better fundamental understanding of the structure-function relationships that define how food matrix properties change and influence nutrient release and transit during gastrointestinal digestion. Dietary lipids are of particular relevance due to their high energy density and associations with cardiometabolic risk, including postprandial rises in blood lipids. Studies using the dynamic TIM-1 digestion model enable investigations of fatty acid bioaccessibility, a precursor to lipid absorption, across a range of food products. This review presents the results of several investigations into food structure, with TIM-1 focusing on lipid digestion and instances where the findings correlate with corresponding human studies. Collectively, a better understanding of how food structure influences postprandial lipemia supports the development of food products tailored to benefit health.