There are few studies on the assessment of digestibility of nondigestible carbohydrates, despite their increasingly important role in human health. In vitro digestibility of a range of dietary carbohydrates classified as digestible (maltose, sucrose, and lactose), well-recognized (lactulose, fructooligosaccharides (FOS), and two types of galactooligosaccharides (GOS) differing in the predominant glycosidic linkage), and potential (lactosucrose and GOS from lactulose, OsLu) prebiotics using a rat small intestinal extract (RSIE) under physiological conditions of temperature and pH is described. Recognized and potential prebiotics were highly resistant to RSIE digestion although partial hydrolysis at different extents was observed. FOS and lactulose were the most resistant to digestion, followed closely by OsLu and more distantly by both types of GOS and lactosucrose. In GOS, β(1 → 6) linkages were more resistant to digestion than β(1 → 4) bonds. The reported in vitro digestion model is a useful, simple, and cost-effective tool to evaluate the digestibility of dietary oligosaccharides.
Keywords: carbohydrases; in vitro digestion model; intestinal digestibility; mammalian digestive enzymes; nondigestible oligosaccharides; prebiotics.