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Alsberg-French-Schoch Memorial Award - The intricacies of starch digestion and a view towards quality and health benefit
B. R. HAMAKER (1). (1) Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, U.S.A.
Though seemingly simple as a glucose polymer with only two bond types, starch digestion tends to be a complex affair. Not only is starch presented to the body as a range of molecular fine structures, associated or not, in granular form or not, within food matrices or not, usually with other food components; it is met in the gastrointestinal tract by an equally complex system to digest and extract glucose maximally from it. Our view of starch digestion and its importance has changed over the years and now focuses not only on rate of digestion, but also location and amount at location of glucose deposition in the small intestine. This is because intestinal enterocytes sense glucose and even alpha-amylase digested limit dextrins; and if distally delivered, even in minor amounts, glucose may elicit certain physiologic changes that are desirable to health, such as extending time of nutrient delivery to the body, appetite suppression, and even decrease in food intake. A challenge is to understand starch structures, molecular or supramolecular structures that drive digestion distally and improve starch quality. This lecture will cover our research on mechanistic relationships between granular starch and digestion, fine structures and differing behavior in gelatinized starch systems related to digestion rate, how different structures are received by human alpha-amylases and the four alpha-glucosidases, and ultimately how glucose delivery rate can be moderated and extended distally. A view towards what “carbohydrate quality” may be will be presented.
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