Astaxanthin has been favored as a health food supplement by obese consumers. However, no detailed descriptions are available concerning the absorption of astaxanthin in obese individuals. In this study, we conducted acute and chronic feeding experiments in C57BL/6J mice to study the differences in astaxanthin absorption in normal and obese bodies. The obesity condition greatly decreased astaxanthin concentration in the blood and liver, its accumulation in tissues and organs, and the bioaccessibility. This may be related to the excessive intake of sucrose, fatty acids, and cholesterol, the increased gastrointestinal motility, and the disorder of gut microbiota in the obese body. Overall, our study showed that the obese body had a far less oral absorbability of astaxanthin than a normal body, and we suggest that the recommended or approved doses of astaxanthin can be properly increased for the obese body in the hope that astaxanthin will play a more active role in obese individuals.
Keywords: absorbability; astaxanthin; comparison; normal body; obese individuals.