2014/01/01 by Olivia Ménard, Didier Dupont, Ménard, Olivia +1
Medicine · Nursing · #0 #Clinical Nutrition and Gastroenterology #Diet and metabolism studies #Digesteur #Digestion #In vitro #In vivo #Modéle
paper · doi:10.17180/5hxf-sz54
openalex publication_date 2014/01/01 · openalex created_date 2019/03/22 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
Although the digestive physiology has been studied a lot in the past, little is known about the sharp mechanisms of food disintegration in the digestive tract. During digestion, chemical, enzymatic and mechanical phenomena occur simultaneously. Understanding digestion mechanisms remains an ambitious objective and the increasing number of articles concerning digestion these last ten years demonstrates it. Studying digestion requires to use in vitro or in vivo models. The choice of digestion model depends on many factors such as ethical, technical or financial considerations. The objective of this article is to describe the various existing models adapted to digestion studies. First of all, the in vitro digestion models will be considered. The various stages of the digestion will be detailed and the associated parameters of static models will be elucidated. To go towards more complex and physiologically relevant in vitro systems, different dynamic models unicompartimental or multicompartimental have been developed and will be detailed. In vitro models do not reproduce the biological complexity of the digestive tract, so, the resort to in vivo models, animal or human, remains the best approach to study digestion. So, in a second part, the in vivo models will be described and discussed. This synthesis underlines the variety of digestion models and highlights the importance of being aware of the advantages and drawbacks of digestion models to set up the best model matching the objectives of the study to be conducted.