Comparing gastric emptying of cellulose nanocrystals with sodium alginate and pectin using a dynamic in vitro stomach model.

Cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) are increasingly recognized for their potential in various applications, including packaging, cosmetics, and biomedical engineering. Due to their gelation properties influenced by pH and ionic strength, CNC could impact gastric emptying and satiety, beneficial for managing obesity and diabetes. This study investigated the gastric emptying of CNC (4 % and 8 %, w/w) in comparison with sodium alginate (2 %, w/w) and pectin (2 %, w/w), exploring the effect of divalent cations (Ca ²⁺  and Mg ²⁺ ) using a dynamic gastric digestion model. CNC, in the presence of Ca ²⁺ and Mg ²⁺ , formed a high-viscosity gel network under gastric conditions, leading to delayed gastric emptying. While alginate formed strong gels with Ca ²⁺ , it did not significantly delay gastric emptying due to the poor water-holding capacity of its gel network. Pectin showed minimal impact on gastric emptying. Among the treatments, the half-time (t _1/2 ) of gastric emptying for 8 % CNC with Ca ²⁺ was observed to be the longest at 215.4 ± 23.7 min, compared to the shortest times observed with pectin at 15.1 ± 1.4 min. The results suggest that different mechanisms are involved in the gastric emptying effect of different dietary fibers, and CNC is more effective than alginate and pectin assisting in promoting gastric retention and aiding in the management of body weight. This study also introduced a novel application of the dynamic gastric digestion model for estimating digestion energy expenditure, providing insights into the impact of dietary fiber on gastric emptying and satiety enhancement.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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