Food & Function Blog

High blood pressure, known as the ‘silent killer’ is a significant health problem worldwide contributing to an increased risk for heart attack or stroke.  There are numerous preventative and therapeutic drug treatments as well as dietary compounds that have been identified as contributing to cardiovascular health. 

Food-protein derived peptides which have antihypertensive properties have recently received special attention; however, most of their properties have been demonstrated in vitro.  To be confident of the potential these peptides have in cardiovascular health the beneficial effects must be demonstrated in vivo and in clinical trials. 

This review from Blanca Hernández-Ledesma and co-workers from the Institute of Food Science Research in Madrid, Spain, looks at the current state of the data on blood pressure-lowering activity of food-derived peptides demonstrated in vivo through animal models and humans. Other key roles of these peptides such as the mechanism of action and bioavailability are also summarised.

Interested in knowing more?  Read the full article for free until 21^st February:

Antihypertensive peptides from food proteins: a review
Daniel Martínez-Maqueda, Beatriz Miralles, Isidra Recio and Blanca Hernández-Ledesma
Food Funct., 2012, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C2FO10192K

You may also be interested in this review on the role of milk pepetides in cardiovascular health which is freely available:

The potential role of milk-derived peptides in cardiovascular disease
Martha Phelan and David Kerins
Food Funct., 2011, 2, 153-167, DOI: 10.1039/C1FO10017C

Scientists from Massey University, New Zealand, have investigated the physicochemical and microstructural changes of sodium caseinate-stabilized emulsions during lipid digestion in simulated gastric fluid (SGF) containing pepsin.

During passage through the gastrointestinal tract a food product passes through many different and complex environments from the mouth to the stomach and then to the intestine.  During this journey food will be exposed to widely different pHs, enzymes electrolytes and mechanical environments.  Model systems are thus used to understand such complex conditions because they allow the digestion behaviour and the interactions of individual physiological components of an emulsion to be investigated separately.

The milk protein casein is known to be easily hydrolysed because of its relatively open flexible structure and during digestion it may be hydrolysed by pepsin, which in turn may lead to changes under gastric conditions in the physicochemical properties of the emulsions. The emulsions can also undergo further change when they enter the small intestine.

In this study, the average size, size distribution, microstructure, proteolysis of interfacial proteins and lipolysis of the emulsion droplets were monitored as a function of digestion time. It was found that digestion in SGF accelerated the coalescence of emulsion droplets during simulated intestinal digestion. However, the changes in the size and the microstructure of the emulsions under gastric conditions did not appear to influence the rate and the extent of lipid digestion in the subsequent intestinal environment.

To read the full article, click the link below.  Free until 15th February:

Influence of gastric digestive reaction on subsequent in vitrointestinal digestion of sodium caseinate-stabilized emulsions, Jessie Li, Aiqian Ye, Sung Je Lee and Harjinder Singh, Food Funct., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/c2fo10242k

Also of interest and free to access:

Review of in vitro digestion models for rapid screening of emulsion-based systems
David Julian McClements and Yan Li, Food Funct., 2010, 1, 32-59, DOI: 10.1039/C0FO00111B