Digestion increases fat oxidation in pork and chicken burgers, but does not sample te genotoxic effects

A team of female researchers from Biodiversity and Environment Institute at the University of Navarra has studied how different cooking methods and the digestive process itself affect the oxidation of fats in pork and chicken burgers. The results show that gastrointestinal digestion significantly increases the training of oxidation products, especially in oven-cooked samples. However, none of the potentially absorbable products analyzed showed genotoxic activity in the essay screening assay used.

The study “ work ” was conducted by Amaya Azqueta, a researcher at the BIOMA Institute, and Iciar Astiasarán and Diana Ansorena of the University of Navarra and the Navarra Institute of Health research s (IdiSNA). The study “ research ” was published in the scientific journal *International Journal of Molecular Sciences*.

To conduct the study, the team prepared hamburgers made exclusively from ground pork or chicken and 1% salt. The samples were cooked using three different methods: frying in olive oil, frying in sunflower oil, and baking in the oven at 180 Degrees. They were then subjected to in vitro digestion that replicated the oral, gastric, and intestinal phases of the human digestive process.

The researchers used malondialdehyde as an indicator of fat oxidation. “A high Degree level of lipid oxidation in foods can generate compounds that are potentially harmful to health. Furthermore, the intensity of this process depends on many factors, including the nature Chemistry of the foods and the culinary and technological treatments to which they are subjected,” state Drs. Astiasarán and Ansorena.

Before digestion, the chicken burgers had higher levels of this compound than the pork burgers across all three cooking methods. According to the study, this difference could be due to the fact that chicken fat contains a higher proportion of unsaturated fats, which are more susceptible to oxidation, even though the total amount of fat is lower.

Digestion increased oxidation in all samples. In the bioaccessible fraction—that is, the portion of the food that, after digestion, is released and available in the intestine so it can be absorbed—the increase in malondialdehyde ranged from 220% to 290% in fried hamburgers and from 400% to 480% in oven-baked hamburgers. The oven-baked burgers showed the highest oxidation- fees s for both pork and chicken.

Finally, the researchers evaluated whether the compounds present in this bioaccessible fraction could cause damage to genetic material. “Although digestion increased the training s of oxidation products, these did not cause any genetic damage detectable by the essay s used in the study. However, further programs of study s using other models and methods would be necessary to confirm these results,” states Dr. Amaya Azqueta.

reference letter bibliography:

· Azqueta, A.; Astiasaran, I.; Ansorena, D. In Vitro Genotoxicity Screening and Lipid Oxidation in Pork and Chicken Burgers: Effect of Cooking and Gastrointestinal Digestion. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2026, 27, 3985. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms27093985