Dietary and Bioactive Compounds in Foods: Occurrence, Bioaccessibility, and Human Exposure

To translate the potential health benefits of dietary and bioactive compounds into real-world nutritional recommendations, we must understand their entire lifecycle. A compound’s biological activity in a pure assay means little if it does not survive the food matrix, food preparation, and the gastrointestinal tract in a bioaccessible form. Crucially, human exposure is not limited to beneficial nutrients; it occurs in tandem with food contaminants. Evaluating the actual nutritional value of our diet requires a combined assessment of bioactive occurrence, digestion kinetics, population-level exposure, and the concurrent risk of contaminant exposure.This Research Topic focuses on the physical and chemical journey of food components - from raw matrices and processed foods to their release during digestion and their actual intake in human populations. We welcome manuscripts addressing the following core themes:- Food matrices and processing: Characterization of bioactive compounds in plant, animal, and marine food matrices (including digestion-derived matrices), and how food preparation and industrial processing alter compound stability, release, and molecular transformation.- Matrix and nutrient Interactions: Chemical and physical interactions between nutrients, bioactive compounds, and other food matrix constituents that influence their stability and biological activity.- Digestion and fermentation kinetics: Release, transformation, and metabolic fate of bioactive compounds during gastrointestinal digestion and colonic fermentation, with a specific focus on kinetic studies across different digestion phases.- Human intake and population exposure: Quantitative estimation of dietary intake of bioactive compounds across populations, including variability driven by dietary patterns, lifestyle, age, and sex.- The contaminant dimension: Occurrence, intake, bioaccessibility, and bioavailability of food contaminants, as well as their chemical or physiological interactions with nutrients and bioactive compounds.- Activity of digestion metabolites: Biological activity (antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, or neuroprotective properties) of digestion-derived metabolites and transformation products of food bioactives, assessed in the context of digestive transformation.- Innovative in vitro models: Development and validation of advanced in vitro digestion and fermentation models designed to assess the bioaccessibility, bioavailability, and physiological effects of dietary compounds. Topic editors: Ana Kovačič, MOJCA KOROŠEC, Marjeta Mencin Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/83340/dietary-and-bioactive-compounds-in-foods-occurrence-bioaccessibility-and-human-exposure