A comparative study on phenolic profile, vitamin C content and antioxidant activity of Italian honeys of different botanical origin

Abstract

Summary The aim of our study was to identify and quantify the phenolic acids, flavonoids and vitamin C and to evaluate the antioxidant activity in ninety Italian honeys of different botanical origins (chestnut, sulla, eucalyptus, citrus and multifloral). The results showed that total phenolic and flavonoid contents varied from 11.08 to 14.26 mg GAE per 100 g honey and from 5.82 to 12.52 mg QE per 100 g honey, respectively. HPLC–UV analysis showed a similar but quantitatively different phenolic profile of the studied honeys. Vitamin C is present in all samples. Multifloral honey showed the highest amount of the detected total phenolic compounds and the highest vitamin C content. The DPPH value varied from 55.06 to 75.37%. Among the unifloral honeys, chestnut honey presented the highest levels of phenolic acids, flavonoids and vitamin C, which are closely associated with its high antioxidant activity. The results show that honey contains high amount of biologically active compounds, which play an important role in defining the nutraceutical quality of the product, and that the distribution of these compounds is influenced by the botanical origin.

A comparative study of the antihyaluronidase, antiurease, antioxidant, antimicrobial and physicochemical properties of different unifloral degrees of chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) honeys

“…p-OH benzoic, cumaric acid, protocatechuic acid and caffeic acid were identified as the major phenolic compounds among the tested substances. Similarly to our own findings, one previous study reported that chestnut honeys with a major pollen content exceeding 70% were rich in caffeic acid, catechin and chlorogenic acid 38 . Phenolic acid standard chromatographic (Figure 1) and RP-HPLC-UV validation parameters of phenolic compounds (Table 6).…”

Characterization and antioxidant capacity of sweet chestnut honey produced in North-West Spain

“…They concluded that chestnut honeys are the unifloral honeys with the highest antioxidant capacity when compared with other types of honey such as eucalyptus or blackberry honey. Finally the high phenol content was in concordance with other dark honeys from other geographical areas (Küçük et al, 2007;Kolayli et al, 2008;Sarikaya et al, 2009;Giorgi et al, 2011;Perna et al, 2013). The importance of the phenolic compounds on the honey matrix was considered by various researches because phenolic compounds are important components for human health (Bertoncelj et al, 2007;Küçük et al, 2007).…”

“…One of the methods widely used is the DPPH scavenging ability (Ahn et al, 2007). The high antioxidant potential for sweet chestnut honeys was cited by other authors, for honeys from Turkey (Küçük et al, 2007;Kolayli et al, 2008;Sarikaya et al, 2009), Italy (Pichichero, Canuti, & Canini, 2009;Giorgi et al, 2011;Perna et al, 2013), and Slovenia (Bertoncelj et al, 2007). Sarikaya et al, (2009) noted that chestnut propolis and chestnut honeys may protect humans from deleterious oxidative processes as a result of the antioxidative activity of the chestnut propolis and chestnut honeys.…”

“…Honeybees collect nectar from plants; consequently, bioactive components can be transferred to honey. The direct relationship between the phenolic content and antioxidant activity in different honey types has been cited (Bertoncelj et al, 2007;Lachman et al, 2010;Escuredo et al, 2013b;Perna et al, 2013). The presence of phenolic compounds makes honey, along with fruits Chestnut honey from NW Spain and vegetables, a nutritional source of natural antioxidants responsible for protecting human health.…”

“…There is no specific legislation for quality control of the different honey types so there is no safety assurance for consumers that demand more information (Juan-Borrás et al, 2015). Some honey types have higher values on the market because of the special sensorial properties of the honeys or for the major content of compounds with antioxidant and antimicrobial activity (Bertoncelj et al, 2007;Küçük et al, 2007;Escuredo et al, 2013a;Perna et al, 2013). Therefore, the characterisation of the different honey types, and information about their properties, increase the commercial value of this product.…”