Postbiotics: Enhancing human health with a novel concept

PHYTONutrients — 2024-08-31

Postbiotics is a novel category of biotics that encompasses dead cells, metabolites, and derivatives from gut microbiota. These substances can exhibit their effects without containing cells, such as in cell-free supernatants and spent media. Examples of widely studied postbiotics include short-chain fatty acids, exopolysaccharides, cell wall fragments, and bacterial lysates. Evidence suggests that postbiotics have numerous benefits for human health, including antiaging, and anti-inflammatory properties, and participation in immune and lipid metabolism regulation. Specifically, postbiotics can improve intestinal health by strengthening the intestinal barrier, reducing inflammation, and promoting antibacterial activity. These findings may pave the way for the development of postbiotic functional foods in the future. This review provides an overview of the components, health effects, and industrial applications of postbiotics, aiming to consolidate existing research conclusions and serve as a reference for future studies.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/efd2.180

Hyperspectral guidance for summer tea processing: Enhancing taste and aroma through short‐term cycled heaping

PHYTONutrients — 2024-08-31

To reduce the unpleasant flavor in tea infusion made from summer fresh leaves and lessen tea resource wastage, a short-term cycled heaping method, addressing the temperature/moisture variations during prolonged heaping, was introduced to produce high-quality yellow tea with significantly enhanced taste and aroma. Furthermore, a hyperspectral approach was developed to anticipate such improvements. Specifically, short-term cycled heaping reduced summer tea's astringency and bitterness while increasing sweetness. Using near-infrared spectroscopy, the multiplicative scatter correction (MSC)–support vector machine (SVM) model predicted tea umami with 66.25% precision and richness with 77.64% accuracy via standard normal variate (SNV)–SVM, based on epigallocatechin (EGC), epicatechin (EC), and gallocatechin gallate (GCG) variations. Aroma enhancement was forecasted by a hyperspectral–electronic nose regression model, achieving over 81.50% prediction accuracy for summer tea aromas in the visible spectrum and surpassing 73.45% in the near-infrared domain, primarily attributed to pentanal, propanal, toluene, ethyl propionate, and 2,3-pentanedione variations. Overall, hyperspectral-guided summer tea processing, particularly for summer-harvested leaves, shows potential in offering a valuable screening tool, enhancing quality, and efficiency in the tea industry and promoting sustainable development.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fft2.462

PHYTONutrients: Announcements

Postbiotics: Enhancing human health with a novel concept

Hyperspectral guidance for summer tea processing: Enhancing taste and aroma through short‐term cycled heaping