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Abstract: Probiotic foods receive market interest as health-promoting, functional foods. They have been introduced in a wide range of food industries. However, commercial application of probiotic microorganisms in fermented sausages is not common yet. There are both advantages and disadvantages connected to fermented meat matrices. They are adequate for the carriage of probiotic bacteria since they are usually not or only mildly heated and may promote the survival of probiotic bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract. In contrast, bacterial viability may be reduced due to the high content in curing salt and the low water activity and pH. Therefore, results are expected to be strain-dependent. Up till now, several approaches have been followed but most results are too preliminary to be able to evaluate the effect of probiotic fermented meats on human health. Candidate probiotic strains have been obtained through screening for technological requirements among bacteria that are naturally present in the meat or that originate from meat starter cultures. Alternatively, existing probiotic bacteria have been applied in meat products. Finally, the evaluation of the end-products needs to deal with both health effects and technological characteristics, for instance through human intervention studies and taste panels, respectively. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

[Display omitted] Knowledge regarding the gastrointestinal physiology after sleeve gastrectomy and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass is urgently needed to understand, prevent and treat the nutritional and pharmacological complications of bariatric surgery. To investigate the effect of sleeve gastrectomy and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass on gastrointestinal motility (e.g., transit and pressure), pH, and intestinal bile acid concentration. An exploratory cross-sectional study was performed in six participants living with obesity, six participants who underwent sleeve gastrectomy, and six participants who underwent Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. During the first visit, a wireless motility capsule (SmartPill©) was ingested after an overnight fast to measure gastrointestinal transit, pH, and pressure. During the second visit, a gastric emptying scintigraphy test of a nutritional drink labeled with 99mTc-colloid by a dual-head SPECT gamma camera was performed to measure gastric emptying half-time (GET 1/2). During the third visit, two customized multiple lumen aspiration catheters were positioned to collect fasting and postprandial intestinal fluids to measure bile acid concentration. Immediate pouch emptying (P = 0.0007) and a trend for faster GET 1/2 (P = 0.09) were observed in both bariatric groups. There was a tendency for a shorter orocecal transit in participants with sleeve gastrectomy and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (P = 0.08). The orocecal segment was characterized by a higher 25th percentile pH (P = 0.004) and a trend for a higher median pH in both bariatric groups (P = 0.07). Fasting total bile acid concentration was 7.5-fold higher in the common limb after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (P < 0.0001) and 3.5-fold higher in the jejunum after sleeve gastrectomy (P = 0.009) compared to obesity. Postprandial bile acid concentration was 3-fold higher in the jejunum after sleeve gastrectomy (P = 0.0004) and 6.5-fold higher in the common limb after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (P < 0.0001) compared to obesity. The anatomical alterations of sleeve gastrectomy and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass have an important impact on gastrointestinal physiology. This data confirms changes in transit and pH and provides the first evidence for altered intraluminal bile acid concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

FLEX i GUT is the first large-scale exposomics study focused on chronic low-grade inflammation. It aims to characterize human life course environmental exposure to assess and validate its impact on gut inflammation and related biological processes and diseases. The cumulative influences of environmental and food contaminants throughout the lifespan on certain biological responses related to chronic gut inflammation will be investigated in two Flemish prospective cohorts, namely the "ENVIRONAGE birth cohort", which provides follow-up from gestation to early childhood, and the "Flemish Gut Flora Project longitudinal cohort", a cohort of adults. The exposome will be characterised through biomonitoring of legacy and emerging contaminants, mycotoxins and markers of air pollution, by analysing the available metadata on nutrition, location and activity, and by applying state-of-the-art -omics techniques, including metagenomics, metabolomics and DNA adductomics, as well as the assessment of telomere length and measurement of inflammatory markers, to encompass both exposure and effect. Associations between exposures and health outcomes will be uncovered using an integrated -omics data analysis framework comprising data exploration, pre-processing, dimensionality reduction and data mining, combined with machine learning-based pathway analysis approaches. This is expected to lead to a more profound insight in mechanisms underlying disease progression (e.g. metabolic disorders, food allergies, gastrointestinal cancers) and/or accelerated biological ageing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]