Gastric emptying times of high-fat, high-carbohydrate and high-protein standard meals using MRI examinations – a contribution to estimating the time since death

Background To use gastric content analysis to estimate the postmortem interval, the last meal consumed, and its gastric emptying time must be known. However, previous studies have often investigated single foods, liquid meals, or applied heterogeneous protocols, limiting forensic applicability. Thus, this study aims to investigate gastric emptying times of commonly consumed solid mixed meals with different macronutrient compositions using non-invasive MRI-scans to measure gastric volumes. Methods Fifteen healthy participants consumed high-fat, high-carbohydrate, and high-protein meals on separate days, with postprandial MRI-scans every two hours for up to eight hours (total of 232 scans). Gastric half-emptying-times (t₅₀) were calculated via linear interpolation. Results The high-carbohydrate meal (t₅₀ 132 ± 33 min) emptied significantly faster than the high-fat (t₅₀ 188 ± 41 min, p <0.001) and the high-protein (t₅₀ 158 ± 37 min, p =0.010) meals. Women showed on average greater t₅₀-values, significant only for the high-protein meal ( p =0.003). Conclusion This study provides reference values on nutrient-dependent gastric emptying times supporting forensic postmortem interval estimation as a supplementary method. Clinical trial number Not applicable.