The visualisation and quantification of human gastrointestinal fat distribution with MRI: a randomised study in healthy subjects


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Date

2016-03-14

Publication Type

Journal Article

ETH Bibliography

yes

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Data

Abstract

We aimed to study the fate of fat during digestion. For this purpose, we validated and investigated the non-invasive quantification of gastric and duodenal fat emptying and emulsion processing (creaming and phase separation) using the MRI method iterative decomposition with echo asymmetry and least squares estimation (IDEAL). In total, twelve healthy subjects were studied on two separate visits in a single-blind, randomised, cross-over design study. IDEAL was utilised to repeatedly acquire quantitative fat fraction maps of the gastrointestinal tract after infusion of one of two fat emulsions: E1 (acid stable, droplet size 0·33 mm) and E4 (acid unstable, 0·38 mm). In vitro and in vivo validation was carried out using diluted emulsion and gastric content samples, respectively, and resulted in Lin’s concordance correlation coefficients of 1·00 (95 % CI 0·98, 1·00) and 0·91 (95 % CI 0·87, 0·94), respectively. Fat fraction maps and intragastric emulsion profiles enabled the identification of features of intraluminal phase separation and creaming that were not visible in conventional MRI. Gastric fat emptying was faster for E4 compared with E1 with a difference of 2·5 (95 % CI 1·9, 3·1) ml/h. Duodenal content volumes were larger for E1 than for E4 with a difference of 4·9 (95 % CI 3·9, 8·5) ml. This study demonstrated that with IDEAL it was possible (1) to visualise the intragastric and duodenal fat distribution and (2) to quantify the differences in emptying, phase separation and creaming of an acid-stable and an acid-unstable emulsion. This method has potential to bridge the gap between current in vitro digestive models and in vivo behaviour and to be applied in the development of effective functional foods.

Publication status

published

Editor

Book title

Volume

115 (5)

Pages / Article No.

903 - 912

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Event

Edition / version

Methods

Software

Geographic location

Date collected

Date created

Subject

MRI; Water–fat separation; Lipid emulsions; Biophysics of fat digestion; Gastric physiology; Gastrointestinal function; Healthy subjects

Organisational unit

09548 - Kozerke, Sebastian / Kozerke, Sebastian check_circle

Notes

It was possible to publish this article open access thanks to a Swiss National Licence with the publisher.

Funding

145141 - In Vivo Validation of Functional Food Emulsion Systems (SNF)

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