Minerals and vitamin B9in dried plants vs.infusions: Assessing absorption dynamics of minerals by membrane dialysis tandem in vitrodigestion

Vitamins and mineral elements are among the most important phytochemicals due to their important role in the maintenance of human health. Despite these components had already been studied in different plant species, their full characterization in several wild species is still scarce. In addition, the knowledge regarding the in vivoeffects of phytochemicals, particularly their bioaccessibility, is still scarce. Accordingly, a membrane dialysis process was used to simulate gastrointestinal conditions in order to assess the potential bioaccessibility of mineral elements in different preparations of Achillea millefolium(yarrow), Laurus nobilis(laurel) and Taraxacumsect. Ruderalia(dandelion). The retention/passage dynamics was evaluated using a cellulose membrane with 34mm pore. Dandelion showed the highest levels of all studied mineral elements (except zinc) independently of the used formulations (dried plant or infusion), but yarrow was the only species yielding minerals after the dialysis step, either in dried form, or as infusion. In fact, the ability of each evaluated element to cross the dialysis membrane showed significant differences, being also highly dependent on the plant species. Regarding the potential use of these plants as complementary vitamin B9sources, the detected values were much lower in the infusions, most likely due to the thermolability effect.