A review of In vitro digestion models and studies for soft/semisoft and hard/semihard cheeses

Cheeses are vital for many diets worldwide, and each cheese type presents distinctive physicochemical properties that influence its nutritional outcomes and digestibility. Cheese structure and composition significantly affect cheese digestion kinetics, with moisture content being a key factor influencing a higher digestion rate in soft cheese than in hard cheeses. In vitro digestion models, such as INFOGEST, are commonly used to study cheese disintegration, peptide profile, nutrient release, and probiotic survival. Dynamic models like the Simulator of the Human Intestinal Microbial Ecosystem, the Dynamic Gastrointestinal Digestion System, and the Human Gastric Simulator have also been applied to various cheeses. Cheese composition correlates with macro and micronutrient digestion, particularly high-fat content, promoting faster disintegration and textural changes and more efficient fat release at the end of cheese digestion. Longer ripening times could enhance proteolysis, increase peptide concentration, and improve the bioaccessibility of certain minerals in cheeses. Additionally, a reduction in the protein-to-fat ratio can improve vitamin D bioaccessibility. Cheeses also serve as an effective carrier for probiotics and encapsulating agents, i.e., high oleic palm oil, and their retention kinetics required digestion studies. Moreover, static models employed for cheeses provided results that approximate dynamic models regarding peptide profiling and probiotic survival. However, microbiota interactions and large intestinal fermentation for cheeses are underexplored. This review highlighted the in vitro digestion models and studies on cheeses, stressing the need for advanced systems that integrate both static and dynamic phases while incorporating large intestinal simulation to assess nutrient bioavailability and probiotic survival, leading to a more comprehensive understanding of cheese digestion behavior and its impact on human health.