Heat-moisture treatment enhances the ordered degree of starch structure in whole chestnut flour and alters its gut microbiota modulation in mice fed with high-fat diet

Currently, chestnuts attract more attention among consumers due to its rich nutritional functions, but systematic evaluation on the effect of thermal processing on its nutritional value is still limited. In this work, based on results of microstructural properties that heat-moisture treatment (HMT) could enhance the total ordered degree of starch structure in whole chestnut flour (CN) and promote the formation of anti-enzymatic component, in vitro experiment was then conducted and confirmed that HMT could significantly reduce the predicted glycemic index (pGI) of CN from 75.6 to 64.3 and improve its dietary fiber content from 7.06 to 13.42 g/100 g (p < 0.05). Further dietary intervention studies with CN and heat-moisture treated CN (HMT-CN) supplementation on the high-fat diet (HFD) consuming mice were discussed in terms of gut microbiota and its metabolites changes. The results showed that both CN and HMT-CN significantly resisted the weight gain induced by HFD, while HMT-CN had better serum lipid regulation effect. However, they had different effects on the gut metabolism pathways, among which CN inhibited the production of stearamine by promoting the proliferation of Dubosiella, while HMT-CN contributed to the growth of Lachnoclostridium, Desulfovibrio, and Faecalibaculum which stimulated the formation of associated metabolites including jwh-018-d11, valylproline, tetranor-12(S)-HETE, and PA (3:0/18:0). Overall, these discoveries could provide basic data for the effective utilization of CN in food industry processing.