title: The Nutraceutical Bioavailability Classification Scheme: Classifying Nutraceuticals According to Factors Limiting their Oral Bioavailability.
abstract: The oral bioavailability of a health-promoting dietary component (nutraceutical) may be limited by various physicochemical and physiological phenomena: liberation from food matrices, solubility in gastrointestinal fluids, interaction with gastrointestinal components, chemical degradation or metabolism, and epithelium cell permeability. Nutraceutical bioavailability can therefore be improved by designing food matrices that control their bioaccessibility (B*), absorption (A*), and transformation (T*) within the gastrointestinal tract (GIT). This article reviews the major factors influencing the gastrointestinal fate of nutraceuticals, and then uses this information to develop a new scheme to classify the major factors limiting nutraceutical bioavailability: the nutraceutical bioavailability classification scheme (NuBACS). This new scheme is analogous to the biopharmaceutical classification scheme (BCS) used by the pharmaceutical industry to classify drug bioavailability, but it contains additional factors important for understanding nutraceutical bioavailability in foods. The article also highlights potential strategies for increasing the oral bioavailability of nutraceuticals based on their NuBACS designation (B*A*T*).
authors.affiliation: Department of Food Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003; email: mcclements@foodsci.umass.edu.
authors.forename: David Julian
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: McClements
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Hang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Xiao
mesh_terms: D000284:Administration, Oral; D001682:Biological Availability; D019587:Dietary Supplements
keywords: bioactive food components; delivery systems; drugs; excipient foods; food effects; functional foods; lipophilic; medical foods; nutraceuticals; pharmaceuticals