Gastroenterology 2012;142:1592–1609. see more In the above article, the

name of the first author (Giovanni Musso) of reference number 7 is missing. Reference number 7 should be correctly cited as: Musso G, Gambino R, Cassader M, Pagano G. Meta-analysis: Natural history of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and diagnostic accuracy of non-invasive tests for liver disease severity. G Annals of Medicine 2011;43(8):617–649. “
“In recent years, the West Indian cherry (Malpighia punicifolia) has been commercially exploited with good acceptance, particularly because of its high content of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and its nutritional characteristics associated with pleasant flavor and texture. The ascorbic acid content in West Indian cherry is around 8 mg g−1 in ripe fruits, 16 mg g−1 in half-ripe fruit and 27 mg g−1 in unripe fruit. In other words, its ascorbic acid content is approximately 100-fold higher than that of oranges and 10-fold higher than in guava, both of which are well-known for their high selleckchem content of vitamin C. The increasing production and consumption of West Indian cherry, allied to the fact that it is a highly perishable fruit, make it urgent to develop alternative processing and conservation methods. West Indian cherry offers several advantages over other fruits, i.e., the

high levels of ascorbic acid in its flesh enable West Indian cherry to be industrialized and stored without causing significant nutritional changes. Several authors have studied the drying of West Indian Cherry to achieve these objectives ( Alves et al., 2004, Cerqueira et al., 2009, Corrêa et al., 2008, Jesus et al., 2003, Marques et al., 2007 and Moreira et al., 2009). Osmotic dehydration (OD) is a pre-treatment commonly applied prior to air-drying. This technique consists in immersing the fruit in a hypertonic solution to remove part Epothilone B (EPO906, Patupilone) of the water from the fruit. The driving force for water removal is the difference in osmotic pressure between the fruit and the hypertonic solution. The complex cellular structure of the fruit acts as a semi-permeable membrane, creating

extra resistance to water diffusion within the fruit (Raoult-Wack, 1994, Raoult-Wack et al., 1989, Simal et al., 1998 and Torreggiani, 1993). Osmotic dehydration changes the texture of fruit (Khin et al., 2007, Mayor et al., 2007, Prothon et al., 2001 and Torreggiani and Bertolo, 2001), especially due to the dissolution of pectin and the breakdown of cell tissue. The kinetics of OD processes is usually evaluated in terms of water loss, weight loss and solid gain (Fito & Chiralt, 1997) and depends mainly on the characteristics of the raw material (Raoult-Wack, 1994) and on operational conditions, such as the concentration, temperature (Barat, Chiralt, & Fito, 2001), and exposure time of the solution (Escriche, Garcia-Pinchi, Andrés, & Fito, 2000) and pressure (Barat et al., 2001 and Fito and Pastor, 1994).