From single to multiresponse modelling of food digestion kinetics: The case of lipid digestion

This work presents that lipid digestion kinetics of oil-in-water emulsions can be described by a mechanism-based multiresponse model. The modelling approach proposed takes into account multiple interlinked responses of in vitro lipolysis. Different reaction schemes are proposed and iteratively adapted for one dataset. Based on model discrimination, the model that best described the experimental data was selected. This selected multiresponse model assumes that 1 mol triacylglycerol hydrolyzes to release either 1 mol of monoacylglycerol and 2 mol of free fatty acids or either 3 mol of free fatty acids and 1 mol glycerol. Convergence was evaluated, as well as goodness of fit and accuracy of the parameter estimates (R-adj(2) > 0.986). The validity of this mechanistic model was checked using 28 independent datasets and clearly surpasses the outcome of single response modelling. This is the first proof of concept of the potential of multiresponse modelling in the context of food digestion.