Health benefits from cocoa have been claimed for hundreds of years. Cocoa has been purported to provide benefits for heart disease, diabetes and numerous other conditions. The large polyphenolic polymers have been associated with the benefits. Considerable work has been done to understand the absorption of these polymers, but they are not found at significant levels in the blood. We have explored their metabolism by the gut microbiota. We have found that the large polymers are broken down to small phenolic compounds and phenolic acids that are absorbed. These smaller molecules have clear anti-inflammatory benefits that helps in part to explain the benefits of cocoa. Like many studies involving models of interactions with the microbiota we found variation in the metabolites when cocoa powder was fermented with microbiota from different individuals.<br/>Cocoa powder was treated with increasing strength of alkali (Dutching) and the short chain fatty acid patterns were determined after fermentation with gut microbiota from individuals and a pooled sample. Stronger alkaline conditions resulted in more rapid fermentation and higher levels of short chain fatty acid production.<br/>We compared the changes in cocoa powders from various types of processing and the subsequent interactions with gut microbiota. The results suggest that the degree of alkaline processing can have a significant influence on the fermentability of the cocoa powder.<br/>The results suggest that cocoa powder in various forms might be considered a prebiotic. In addition the benefits which have long been associated from cocoa powder may be derived from the fermentation products produced from the cocoa powder resulting from fermentation by the gut microbiota.

Effect of gut microbiota fermentation on cocoa powders receiving various treatments

256th National Meeting (2018)

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