Novel Strategies For Limiting The Dietary Ingestion Of Toxic Lipid Oxidation Products (Lops) In Humans:

High concentrations of cytotoxic and genotoxic aldehydes are generated as secondary lipid oxidation products (LOPs) in unsaturated fatty acid (UFA)-rich culinary oils when exposed to high temperatures associated with standard frying practices, and the ingestion of these compounds by humans therefore potentially gives rise to a series of deleterious health effects. This PhD research programme will explore the establishment and implementation of a series of NMR-linked chemometrics/computational intelligence technique (CIT) strategies – supported by LC-MS/MS - targeted firstly on the recognition of molecular ‘patterns’ of toxic LOPs generated in a wide range of culinary and marine oil products, particularly when exposed to thermal stressing episodes according to standard frying practices. It will also involve the development and testing of new culinary frying oils with modified UFA contents, i.e. those which are monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA)-rich and polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA)-deplete in order to limit the adverse generation of aldehydic LOPs (MUFAs are much more resistant to thermally-induced oxidation than PUFAs). This project will also involve the development and testing of novel regenerating or self-regenerating antioxidant formulations, and the use of monolayer-forming dialkylpolysioxanes to suppress such lipid oxidation, together with agents which serve to block the uptake of LOPs by foods fried in culinary oil media. Further investigations will focus on ‘state-of-the-art’ epidemiological estimations of dietary LOP intake in human populations.