Effect of chyme viscosity and nutrient feedback mechanism on gastric emptying

A comprehensive mathematical model of the digestive processes in humans could allow for better design of functional foods which may play a role in stemming the prevalence of food related diseases around the world. This work presents a mathematical model for a nutrient based feedback mechanism controlling gastric emptying, which has been identified in vivo by numerous researchers. The model also takes into account the viscosity of nutrient meals upon gastric secretions and emptying. The results show that modelling the nutrient feedback mechanism as an on/off system, with an initial emptying rate dependent upon the secretion rate (which is a function of the gastric chyme viscosity) provides a good fit to the trends of emptying rate for liquid meals of low and high nutrient content with varying viscosity.