Study of the stabilizing effect of cereal bran on fat-soluble vitamins during food processing

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is a largely occurring health issue, leading to preventable blindness in children, abnormal bone growth, modification of epithelial cell functionality and increased risk of infections. Food supplementation with vitamin A is an efficient strategy to prevent VAD. However, the stability of vitamin A during food processing is low. Carriers can be used to increase vitamin A stability, but these are often costly and difficult to apply on a large
scale. Therefore, there is a high demand for natural and healthy stabilizing agents of vitamin A. To that end, the goal of this project is to explore the potential of cereal bran to stabilize vitamin A during food processing. It was already shown previously that wheat bran is able to stabilize vitamin A during cooking, but the mechanism behind this interaction is still unknown. Additionally, it is unclear if different environmental conditions (i.e. temperature, pH, food matrix) affect the interaction of wheat bran with vitamin A, and if the bioaccessibility of vitamin A in the human body is hampered by its interaction with bran. Additionally, information is lacking about the potential of other bran sources (i.e. rice, oat,…) to stabilize vitamin A and other fatsoluble vitamins like vitamin D. Overall, the results of this project will lead to more insight on the potential of cereal bran to stabilize fatsoluble vitamins during processing, which is relevant for the prevention of vitamin deficiency.