Digestion Modelling in the Small Intestine : Impact of Dietary Fibre

TL;DR

This paper extends a small intestine digestion model to include dietary fibre effects, focusing on viscosity and water holding capacity, revealing how insoluble fibre accelerates digestion while soluble fibre may hinder it.

Contribution

It introduces a novel qualitative dynamical model incorporating dietary fibre characteristics and their impact on digestion processes, which was not previously modeled.

Findings

Insoluble dietary fibre increases bolus velocity and degradation.

Soluble dietary fibre has a negative effect on digestion.

Model aligns with experimental observations of fibre effects.

Abstract

In this work, we continue the modelling of the digestion in the small intestine, started in a previous article, by investigating the effects of dietary fibre. We recall that this model aims at taking into account the three main phenomena of the digestion, namely the transit of the bolus, the degradation of feedstuffs and the absorption through the intestinal wall. In order to study the role of dietary fibre on digestion, we model their two principal physiochemical characteristics which interact with the function of the small intestine, i.e. viscosity and water holding capacity. This leads us to consider some features of digestion which have not been taken into account previously, in particular the interrelationship between the evolution of dry matter and water in the bolus. The numerical results are in agreement with the positive effect of insoluble dietary fibre on the velocity of bolus along the small intestine and on its degradation. These results highlight the negative effect of soluble dietary fibre on digestion. Although, this model is generic and contains a large number of parameters, to our knowledge, it is among the first qualitative dynamical modelling of fibre influence on intestinal digestion.