Role of lipid structure and physical properties in digestive processes impacting nutrition

膳食脂质在健康和疾病中起着重要作用。然而，我们无法充分界定潜在的关系。此外，虽然脂质必须在胃肠道中溶解才能被吸收，但对脂质消化的生物化学和生物物理过程知之甚少。特别是，很少考虑脂质结构和物理性质在确定食物代谢效应中的作用。这种缺乏了解阻碍了我们设计优化脂质吸收的食品和天然健康产品的能力。例如，期望增加脂溶性维生素和营养品的吸收，或使促进心血管疾病风险和肥胖的脂肪酸的吸收最小化。定制脂质消化以触发饱腹感机制的潜力，即最大限度地减少食物摄入以帮助对抗超重和肥胖的迅速增长的发病率的策略，也是令人兴奋的。

Dietary lipids play important roles in health and disease. However, we are unable to adequately define the underlying relationships. Also, although lipids must be solubilized in the gastrointestinal tract before they can be absorbed, not enough is known about the biochemical and biophysical processes of lipid digestion. In particular, the role of lipid structure and physical properties in determining the metabolic effect of foods is rarely considered. This lack of understanding hampers our ability to design foods and natural health products that optimize lipid absorption. For example, it would be desirable to increase the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins and nutraceuticals or to minimize the absorption of fatty acids that promote cardiovascular disease risk and obesity. The potential to tailor lipid digestion to trigger satiety mechanisms, i.e. a strategy to minimize food intake to help combat the burgeoning incidences of overweight and obesity, is also exciting.