An in vitro ‘dynamic’ model for food digestion diagnosis, the Human Gastric Simulator (HGS), has been designed to reproduce the fluid mechanical conditions driving the disintegration and mixing of gastric contents during digestion. The HGS simulates the stomach as a flexible compartment, and mimics its contractive motility by a series of rollers that continuously impinge and compress the compartment wall with increasing amplitude. Operated at 37 °C, the HGS facilitates a precise control of the mechanical forces to which foods are exposed during the process, as well as of the rate of simulated gastric secretions and emptying patterns.
Applications of the HGS have illustrated the need to better understand, and mimic, the fluid mechanic conditions that develop during digestion to improve the performance and reliability of novel in vitro models. To date, the HGS has been used to analyse the digestion behaviour of different foods, and the role of their materials properties on the physicochemical changes that they experience during the process. While the ability of the HGS to reproduce the gastric forces that develop in vivo has been proved, further studies are needed to achieve a thorough validation of its digestive capabilities.
Copyright 2015, The Author(s).