The highest carotenoid recovery (6%) was achieved in the formulation with 2.5% SR, showing a positive correlation between the content of SR and the bioaccessibility of total carotenoids. Results suggest that the addition of the natural sweetener SR may enhance somehow dialysability of carotenoids through the semipermeable membrane. Amongst the factors that affect carotenoid bioaccessibility, other authors have shown that the matrix in which carotenoids are embedded can play a significant role on bioaccessibility, along with effectors of absorption and bioconversion (West & Castenmiller, 1998). However, the use of a dialysis membrane does not take into account active transport via membrane
transporters through which carotenoids are absorbed (Reboul & Borel, 2011), leading to an underestimation of the real
bioaccessibility of carotenoids