LAUSR

BACKGROUND Tropane alkaloids (TAs) are toxic compounds with a high anticholinergic effect. They have been widely analyzed in food samples, but their fate in the gastrointestinal tract has not been evaluated yet. RESULTS In the current study, static in vitro digestion was performed to assess gastrointestinal bioaccessibility of the most common TAs on tea and home-made cookies. Cookies enriched with dietary fibers (pectin, arabinogalactan and K-carrageenan) were also tested to evaluate their influence on TAs bioaccessibility. Two extraction methods and a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry method were optimized and validated. Bioaccessibility for tea (60-105%) were higher than for cookies (39-93%) (p-values=0.001-0.002), which indicates TAs could be more easily absorbed when they are contaminating tea. Digestion of cookies enriched with 50 g kg-1 of different fibers showed that, although no significant changes were observed in the gastric phase (p-values=0.084-0.920), duodenal bioaccessibility was significantly reduced (p-values=0.008-0.039). Pectin was the fiber with a better mitigation effect for all the compounds. CONCLUSION TAs bioaccessibility was determined after in vitro digestion of contaminated tea and cookies. Dietary fibers seem to be a promising mitigation strategy, significantly reducing the TAs bioaccessibility percentages. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.