Abstract
Chitosan is prepared by the deacetylation of chitin, the second-most abundant biopolymer in nature, and has applicability in the removal of dyes, heavy metals and radioactive waste for pollution control. In weight-reduction remedies, chitosan is used to form hydrogels with lipids and to depress the intestinal absorption of lipids. In this study, an experimental method was implemented to simulate the effect of chitosan on the adsorption of humic acid in the gastrointestinal tract. The adsorption capacity of chitosan was measured by its adsorption isotherm and analyzed using the Langmuir equation. The results showed that 3.3 grams of humic acid was absorbed by 1 gram of chitosan. The adsorption capacity of chitosan was much greater than that of chitin, diethylaminoethyl-cellulose or activated charcoal. Cellulose and carboxymethyl-cellulose, a cellulose derivative with a negative charge, could not adsorb humic acid in the gastrointestinal tract. This result suggests that chitosan entraps humic acid because of its positive charge.
Highlights
Blackfoot disease (BFD) is an endemic chronic peripheral vascular disease that occurs along the southwest coast of Taiwan [1,2,3]
Chitosan is a linear polymer of predominantly glucosamine units and behaves as a polyelectrolyte at acidic pH values
According to the results obtained in this study, we suggest that chitosans with a high DD value readily dissolve in the stomach because of the presence of gastric acid
Summary
Blackfoot disease (BFD) is an endemic chronic peripheral vascular disease that occurs along the southwest coast of Taiwan [1,2,3]. A fluorescent compound purified from well water and identified as humic acid (HA) was reported to induce BFD-like symptoms in mice [8,9,10,11]. It shows the HA causes damage to the cell [11,12]. A series of experiments have been performed to demonstrate the biomedical function of chitin, chitosan and their derivatives [16,18,21,23,24,25,26,27] It was shown the hypocholesterolemic properties of chitosan [28,29,30].
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