Development of a water-soluble fluorescent Al probe based on phenylsulfonyl-2-pyrone in biological systems.

Background: Al exists naturally in the environment and is an important component in acidic soils, which harm almost all plants. Furthermore, Al is widely used in food additives, cosmetics, and medicines, resulting in living organisms ingesting traces of Al orally or dermally every day. Accordingly, Al accumulates in the body, which can cause negative bioeffects and diseases, and this concern is gaining increasing attention.

Physicochemical properties and digestibility of eleven Vietnamese rice starches with varying amylose contents.

The physicochemical properties of eleven Vietnamese rice starches with apparent amylose contents ranging from 0.2% to 28.4% were investigated to identify the interplaying factors contributing to the in vitro digestibility of starch: in uncooked, cooked in excess water and under limited water conditions.

Voluntary fortification of breakfast cereals with folic acid: contribution to dietary intake in Australia.

Ready-to-eat breakfast cereals have been voluntarily fortified with folic acid since 1995, with the purpose of reducing the prevalence of neural tube defects in utero. Using data from the recent Australian Health Survey, this study aimed to estimate folate intake from one serving of breakfast cereals (median amount). Various commercial brands were purchased in 2002 (n = 19) and in 2014 (n = 14); folate was determined by microbiological assay and high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC).

Comparison of nutritional properties of Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) flour with wheat and barley flours.

Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica. L) is a wild, unique herbaceous perennial flowering plant with Stinging hairs. It has a long history of use as a food sources as a soup or curries, and also used as a fiber as well as a medicinal herb.

Quantification of sugars in breakfast cereals using capillary electrophoresis.

About 80% of the Australian population consumes breakfast cereal (BC) at least five days a week. With high prevalence rates of obesity and other diet-related diseases, improved methods for monitoring sugar levels in breakfast cereals would be useful in nutrition research. The heterogeneity of the complex matrix of BCs can make carbohydrate analysis challenging or necessitate tedious sample preparation leading to potential sugar loss or starch degradation into sugars.

Molecular, mesoscopic and microscopic structure evolution during amylase digestion of extruded maize and high amylose maize starches.

Extrusion processing of cereal starch granules with high (>50%) amylose content is a promising approach to create nutritionally desirable resistant starch, i.e. starch that escapes digestion in the small intestine.

In vitro digestibility and physicochemical properties of milled rice.

Rice is a staple diet as well as a major ingredient in many processed foods. The physicochemical and supra-molecular structure of eight rice varieties with amylose content from 9% to 19% were studied to elucidate the factors responsible for variation in enzymatic digestibility of raw and cooked rice. Parboiled rice had a digestion rate coefficient almost 4.

Heterogeneity in maize starch granule internal architecture deduced from diffusion of fluorescent dextran probes.

Heterogeneity in maize starch granules was investigated by studying the diffusion of fluorescent dextran probes (20, 70 and 150kDa) inside granules using fluorescence recovery after photobleaching combined with confocal microscopy. Access of probes to the interior of granules was greatly enhanced by limited (2.4%) amylolysis.

Molecular, mesoscopic and microscopic structure evolution during amylase digestion of maize starch granules.

Cereal starch granules with high (>50%) amylose content are a promising source of nutritionally desirable resistant starch, i.e. starch that escapes digestion in the small intestine, but the structural features responsible are not fully understood.

Physicochemical and structural properties of maize and potato starches as a function of granule size.

Chemical composition, molecular structure and organization, and thermal and pasting properties of maize and potato starches fractionated on the basis of granule size were investigated to understand heterogeneity within granule populations. For both starches, lipid, protein, and mineral contents decreased and apparent amylose contents increased with granule size. Fully branched (whole) and debranched molecular size distributions in maize starch fractions were invariant with granule size.

Molecular rearrangement of starch during in vitro digestion: toward a better understanding of enzyme resistant starch formation in processed starches.

Resistant starch (RS) is defined as the fraction of starch that escapes digestion in the small intestine, serving as a fermentation substrate for beneficial colonic bacteria. Several studies have been focused on the description of the RS fractions from different starch varieties, but little attention has been paid to the digestion process itself that, from the present work, seems to play a key role in the generation of enzyme-RS (ERS), as determined in vitro. High-amylose starch samples, extruded at two different processing conditions, have been characterized at different stages of in vitro digestion using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), solid state (13)C NMR spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction (XRD).