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quinta-feira, 2 de fevereiro de 2012

New Worlds: Beverage nutrients protected


Healthy drinks often lose nutritional content to marketing conditions; now innovation protects natural substances when added to beverages.

Juice [illustrative]
By Thinkstock/Imagebank

There are drinks sold as being beneficial for health, but the conditions under which they are marketed and sold tend not to protect their nutritional content by the time they reach the consumer.

Now an innovation based on nanotechnology from Haifa’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology protects the natural substances when added to clear beverages.


The researchers say the invention can also be used in the pharmaceutical industry to protect drugs as they move from the stomach to absorption via the intestines. It may also help fight intestinal cancers.

The group, headed by Dr. Yoav Livni of the biotechnology and food engineering faculty, developed nanocapsules based on natural food ingredients and “imprisoned” in them vitamins and other ingredients that improve health but aren’t water soluble.

The nanocapsules can be added to clear beverages and enrich their health value without losing transparency.

Livni, who before joining the Technion was a member of the Straus foods team that developed the dairy products Gemadim, Ski and Symphonia, said the team used a natural reaction, based on melding the nanocapsules with polysaccharide proteins, to create the nanocapsules.

This reaction also causes cooked and baked food to turn brown. In the past, the technique was used to create emulsions and add microcapsules to insoluble food components, but the capsules were too big, and the beverages were not clear.

To overcome this problem, the team mixed maltodextrin, which is the result of the controlled breakdown of starch, into casein, which is milk protein. The resulting fused molecules spontaneously reorganized and created nanometric capsules so small that the liquid in which they are submerged remained clear.

Then they captured vitamin D – a beneficial nutrient that many people are deficient in – within the capsules. The scientists found that the vitamin didn’t break down inside despite the acidic environment. Shelf life was thus lengthened substantially. It also didn’t not fall apart when exposed to stomach enzymes and could therefore be absorbed in the small intestine. Livni intends to research the release profile of the new substance and how long it can survive biologically. "We also want to study encapsulation of other bioactive substances such as anti-cancer drugs.”


Read the rest of the story here