Abstract: Lipids are one of the important nutrients needed by the human body and play an important role in supplying energy to the body. Different self-assembled structures such as emulsions, liposomes/vesicles, micelles, lyotropic liquid crystals are easily formed during lipid digestion. These structures are important carriers for delivering active nutrients, which not only affect the digestion and metabolism of lipids, but also influence the delivery and absorption of nutrients. This article reviews the digestion process and metabolites of lipids, focusing on the self-assembled structures of lipids and the potential influence of their changes on the intestinal delivery and bioaccessibility of active substances. Understanding the digestion process of dietary lipids and the self-assembly structures of their metabolites is helpful to understand the role of lipids in delivering nutrients, especially hydrophobic ones, during the digestion process, providing a reference for new self-assembled systems for nutrient delivery.

Key words: lipid digestion; self-assembled structure; nutrient delivery; bioaccessibility