In vitro gastrointestinal digestion of crisphead lettuce: Changes in bioactive compounds and antioxidant potential.

In this study, the potential health benefits of crisphead lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) before and after digestion were represented by the recovery, bioaccessibility, and change of bioactive compounds including total phenolic (TPC) and total flavonoids content (TFC), and bioactivities [in vitro antioxidant activities including 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), 2, 2'-azinobis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) radical scavenging activities, ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and metal ion chelating activity (MIC)]. The release of bioactive compounds as well as bioactivities increased during gastric and intestinal digestion for 1 h and subsequently decreased when digestion was completed. The bioaccessibility of TPC and TFC at after digestion was 56-73 and 75-79%, respectively. Among all bioactivities, crisphead lettuce showed a residual activity of ABTS (61-95%) followed by FRAP (70-86%), DPPH (24-52%) and MIC (32-73%) during the digestion. Our study suggested that crisphead lettuce maintains stability in both bioactive compounds and bioactivities during the digestion.