The effect of hesperidin encapsulation and particle size reduction on hesperetin bioavailability was assessed after the intake of orange flavanone beverages. Hesperidin micronization (5.1 μm) increased flavanone's bioavailability 2-fold compared to conventional hesperidin (32.8 μm). Gum Arabic encapsulated hesperidin, with enhanced dispersion in water, also showed increased bioavailability despite having a higher particle size than conventional hesperidin (74.2 μm), showing that flavanone dispersion also enhances its bioavailability. The bioavailability of micronized hesperetin was also evaluated to overcome the need for gut microbiota rhamnosidase hydrolysis. When volunteers were stratified for their flavanone excretion capability, differences among treatments were better observed. The treatments used to increase solubility and decrease particle size to facilitate the interaction with intestinal cells and gut microbiota enhanced bioavailabilty especially in high (9.2 ± 1.5 mg) and medium (5.5 ± 0.3 mg) flavanone excretors. On the contrary, micronized hesperetin bioavailability was particularly high in the case of low excretors (4.3 ± 0.6 mg), showing that the low excretion in these volunteers should be associated with the lack of the appropriate microbiota to release hesperetin from hesperidin. Not all of the low excretors, however, reached the excretion levels of high excretors when hesperetin was supplied, suggesting that differences in intestinal transporters of the volunteers could also affect the flavanone excretion rates observed.
Keywords: UPLC triple quadrupole; absorption; hesperetin; hesperidin; volunteers stratification.