Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is frequently accompanied by early anorexia, weight loss, and metabolic dysregulation, yet effective interventions remain limited. This study investigated whether eugenol atomization inhalation could ameliorate feeding deficits in 5×FAD mice. Results showed that eugenol inhalation rapidly increased food intake at 2–4 h post-inhalation and significantly promoted body weight gain after 4 weeks in 5×FAD mice. These behavioral and physiological changes were accompanied by a shift in peripheral appetite-related factors, characterized by increased orexigenic signals and reduced anorexigenic signals in serum. In parallel, eugenol-treated 5×FAD mice showed hypothalamic changes consistent with improved feeding-regulatory neuropeptide balance, including increased NPY and AGRP expression and reduced POMC and MC4R levels. Fos proto-oncogene, AP-1 transcription factor subunit (c-Fos) analysis further showed altered neuronal activity patterns, with increased activation in the olfactory bulb and reduced hyperactivity in the hypothalamus. Moreover, eugenol markedly alleviated systemic and AD-related neuroinflammation. Transcriptomic profiling further demonstrated selective reversal of AD-associated gene expression, including 17 inversely regulated candidate differentially expressed genes. Collectively, these findings establish eugenol inhalation as a promising olfaction-mediated, non-invasive strategy for restoring appetite and metabolic homeostasis in AD.

Starchy foods are characterized by complex internal structures and dynamic oral transformations, including mechanical breakdown, saliva-mediated hydration and enzymatic hydrolysis. These processes play a central role in texture perception but cannot be fully simulated by conventional texture evaluation methods. Electromyography (EMG) records bioelectrical signals generated by masticatory muscles and provides an objective approach to characterizing muscle recruitment patterns, chewing load, and oral processing strategies during actual food consumption. This review summarizes recent advances in the application of EMG to starchy food research, with particular emphasis on its advantages in evaluating key textural attributes, including hardness, crispness, stickiness, and springiness. The roles of time- and frequency-domain EMG features in revealing the biomechanical responses of different starchy foods during oral processing are also discussed. In addition, this review highlights the value of EMG in monitoring chewing rhythm and swallowing behavior, as well as in exploring the relationship between oral processing and digestive health. Its potential applications in personalized nutrition guidance, healthy food development, and customized food design for individuals with dysphagia are further considered. Despite its advantages, the broader application of EMG remains constrained by challenges in multichannel signal acquisition, high-dimensional data processing, and physiological interpretation. Future integration of EMG with texture analysis, rheological measurements, sensory evaluation, and artificial intelligence may enable more comprehensive and intelligent food texture evaluation systems. Moreover, EMG-derived information on muscle recruitment and masticatory force regulation may provide physiological insights for the development of biomimetic chewing systems and robotic oral processing functions.

Freeze–thaw stress reduces baker’s yeast viability, delays fermentation restart, and weakens frozen-dough bread quality. Here, three independent Saccharomyces cerevisiae lineages were evolved for 300 generations under repeated freeze–thaw selection. Evolved populations showed markedly improved survival, with the best lineage reaching ~96% post-thaw viability, while retaining baseline growth capacity. In frozen dough, evolved lineages improved loaf expansion and texture retention after freezing. Physiological assays showed faster post-thaw recovery, stronger fermentation-associated activity, lower intracellular reactive oxygen species accumulation, altered antioxidant capacity, and better preservation of cell-envelope morphology. Transcriptomic, metabolomic, and cross-omics analyses of ALE1 linked these phenotypes to coordinated remodeling of carbon recovery metabolism, nitrogen redistribution, sulfur/glutathione-associated redox pathways, and membrane-related metabolites. These results show that ALE improves frozen-dough yeast performance through coordinated physiological and multi-omics remodeling rather than a single stress-response pathway.

The digestion and absorption of edible oils determine the nutritional value, bioavailability and metabolic effects of lipids. Research in this field has progressed from early descriptions of lipid digestion and absorption phenomena to a systematic framework encompassing digestive processes, absorption and transport mechanisms, and regulatory factors, thereby providing an important theoretical basis for precision lipid nutrition. This review summarizes the historical development of research on edible oil digestion and absorption, from early hypotheses to molecular mechanistic studies, and provides a comprehensive analysis of the physicochemical changes of oils during digestion in the oral cavity, stomach, and intestine. We further discussed the intestinal absorption and transport mechanisms of oil digestion products, including passive diffusion and protein-mediated transport. In addition, we reviewed current models used to study oil digestion and absorption and compared their respective advantages and limitations. Besides, we discussed the emerging roles of machine learning and artificial intelligence in precision lipid nutrition design and outlined key questions for future research in this field. Finally, we also emphasized the regulatory roles of lipid structure, key enzymes, absorption transporters, bile salts and intestinal microenvironment in lipid digestion and absorption.

Personalized food is moving from a concept of dietary recommendation toward an engineering problem of designing, manufacturing, evaluating, and continuously improving edible structures for specific users. Individual differences in metabolism, swallowing ability, sensory preference, disease risk, age, culture, and eating context are now widely recognized, yet the food industry still relies largely on standardized products and broad nutritional categories. This review argues that the central challenge is not only to know what an individual needs, but to translate that knowledge into safe, acceptable, manufacturable, and verifiable foods. 3D food printing is therefore discussed not simply as a technique for shaping foods, but as a programmable manufacturing node within a broader cyber-physical food system. The review integrates printable matrix design, precision nutrition, dysphagia-friendly foods, toolpath engineering, and EEG-informed sensory feedback. This is a critical integrative review and does not report a new EEG/fNIRS dataset or classifier; instead, neurophysiological measures are evaluated as complementary inputs within a multimodal, evidence-gated design and validation workflow. Particular attention is given to older adults with dysphagia, because this group exposes the practical tension between safety, nutrition, texture, dignity, and eating pleasure. EEG-based sensory evaluation is considered as a complementary tool for understanding implicit responses, while its limits, ethical risks, and need for multimodal validation are emphasized. Finally, a sense-model-print-evaluate-learn framework is proposed to connect personal data, material design, process control, sensory assessment, and iterative learning. The future of personalized foods depends less on isolated technical novelty than on validated, evidence-gated systems that respect human needs, clinical safety, manufacturing reality, and everyday eating experience.

Schizochytrium has emerged as a promising platform for eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) production because of its high biomass and lipid accumulation capacities. However, the regulatory mechanisms underlying EPA accumulation remain unclear. This study investigated the effects of supplementing methionine (Met), a key precursor of S-adenosylmethionine (SAM), on lipid metabolism and EPA biosynthesis. An optimal Met concentration of 5 g/L significantly increased the proportion of EPA in shake flasks from 1.7% to 2.8%. In a 3-L bioreactor, the EPA production reached 2.34 g/L. Metabolomic analysis suggested that Met supplementation was associated with altered central carbon metabolism and a shift towards glycerol-3-phosphate (G3P) accumulation, which is a key precursor of lipid synthesis. Lipid analysis revealed that Met promoted the redistribution of fatty acids from triacylglycerols to phospholipids (PLs), with EPA being preferentially enriched in PLs. This shift was accompanied by enhanced membrane fluidity and upregulation of genes essential for PLs biosynthesis. Overall, these results indicate that Met enhances EPA accumulation through coordinated carbon flux redistribution and phospholipid remodeling, highlighting a potential linkage between G3P metabolism, PLs remodeling, and EPA biosynthesis. This study provides new insights into sulfur-mediated lipid regulation and offers a practical strategy for enhancing EPA production in Schizochytrium.

Plant-based lactic acid bacteria fermentation is known to alter polysaccharide structures by enzymatic reactions, whereas the role of non-enzymatic reactions remains unclear. To investigate how non-enzymatic reactions impact the structural modification of wolfberry polysaccharides during fermentation by Lactiplantibacillus plantarum NCU137, a series of structural characterization techniques with metabolomics analysis were applied. The results showed fermentation induced marked degradation of wolfberry polysaccharides, as evidenced by decreased proportion of →5)-Araf-(1→(Af₅) residues. Untargeted metabolomics identified 242 differential metabolites, suggesting that fermentation-induced polysaccharide remodeling was associated with changes in the acidic and redox microenvironments. Accordingly, organic acids, vitamins, fatty acids, and amino acids were selected for targeted quantification based on variations in metabolite type and abundance. Notably, lactic acid accumulated sharply to 4.8 mg/mL, whereas vitamin C decreased significantly from 2847.3 to 2672.0 μg/g, indicating that lactic acid accumulation and vitamin C-associated redox changes may act as one of key non-enzymatic contributors to polysaccharide structural remodeling. Finally, in vitro simulation further supported the synergistic effects of lactic acid and vitamin C on the structure modification. These findings offer a theoretical perspective on the functional enhancement of polysaccharide during fruit and vegetable fermentation.