No abstract

There has been an explosion of probiotic incorporated based product. However, many reports indicated that most of the probiotics have failed to survive in high quantity, which has limited their effectiveness in most functional foods. Thus, to overcome this problem, microencapsulation is considered to be a promising process. In this study, Lactococcus lactis Gh1 was encapsulated via spray-drying with gum Arabic together with Synsepalum dulcificum or commonly known as miracle fruit. It was observed that after spray-drying, high viability (~109 CFU/mL) powders containing L. lactis in combination with S. dulcificum were developed, which was then formulated into yogurt. The tolerance of encapsulated bacterial cells in simulated gastric juice at pH 1.5 was tested in an in-vitro model and the result showed that after 2 h, cell viability remained high at 1.11 × 106 CFU/mL. Incubation of encapsulated cells in the presence of 0.6% (w/v) bile salts showed it was able to survive (~104 CFU/mL) after 2 h. Microencapsulated L. lactis retained a higher viability, at ~107 CFU/mL, when incorporated into yogurt compared to non-microencapsulated cells ~105 CFU/mL. The fortification of microencapsulated and non-microencapsulated L. lactis in yogurts influenced the viable cell counts of yogurt starter cultures, Lactobacillus delbrueckii subs. bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus.

There has been an enormous interest in the development of alternative medicines for type-2 diabetes, specifically screening for phythochemicals with the ability to delay or prevent glucose absorption. The goals of the present study were to provide in vitro evidence for potential inhibition of α-amylase and α-glucosidase enzymes, followed by inclusion of the extracts of Synsepalum dulcificum in yogurt to enhance the therapeutic properties of the yogurt. The screening results of seed, leaf and pulp of S. dulcificum showed that pulp extracts contained significantly (P<0.05) higher anti-diabetic activities than the other plant parts. More interestingly, S. dulcificum pulp also has stronger anti-diabetic properties than the standard drug, acarbose and hence it was chosen to be incorporated into yogurt. S. dulcificum yogurt had higher (P<0.05) anti-diabetic activities than the plain yogurt throughout the storage period with the highest α-glucosidase and α-amylase inhibitory activities were shown on day 7 of storage. Therefore, S. dulcificum pulp can be developed as functional factor with anti-diabetic activities in food application.