Absorption and isomerization of caffeoylquinic acids from different foods using ileostomist volunteers

Polyphenols are thought to play important roles in human nutrition and health but these health effects are dependent on their bioavailability. This study is one of a series with the aim of determining possible effects of food matrices on caffeoylquinic acid (CQA) bioavailability using ileostomy volunteers. After a CQA-free diet, ileostomists consumed coffee (746 mu mol total CQA), and CQAs in excreted ileal fluid were subsequently identified and quantified with HPLC-diode array detection and HPLC-ESI-MS/MS. In our previous studies, other food sources such as cloudy apple juice (CAJ) (358 mu mol CQA) and apple smoothie (AS) (335 mu mol CQA) were investigated with the same model. Interesterification of CQA from both apple matrices was observed during gastrointestinal passage, whereas CQA consumed in coffee was not influenced by interesterification reactions. In total, 74.3, 22.4, and 23.8 % of the CQA from CAJ, AS, and coffee, respectively, were absorbed or degraded. Our results show that variations in food matrices and variations in phenolic composition have a major influence on intestinal bioavailability and interesterification of the investigated subclass of polyphenols, the CQAs.