Bioactive Compounds: Historical Perspectives, Opportunities, and Challenges

Abstract

Mom's conventional wisdom of eating fruits and vegetables to lead a healthy life has evolved with scientific, fact-finding research during the past four decades due to advances in science of "Foods for Health". Epidemiological and prospective studies have demonstrated the vital role of fruits, vegetables, and nuts in reducing the risk of cancer and cardiovascular diseases. In recent years, several meta-analyses strongly suggested that by adding one serving of fruits and vegetables to daily diet, the risk of cardiovascular diseases will be decreased up to 7%. The multidisciplinary and partnership efforts of agriculture and medical scientists across the globe stimulated interest in establishing certain interdisciplinary centers and institutes focusing on "Foods for Health". While the consumption of various healthy foods continues, several questions about toxicity, bioavailability, and food-drug interactions of bioactive compounds are yet to be fully understood on the basis of scientific evidence. Recent research on elucidation of the molecular mechanisms to understand the "proof of the concept" will provide the perfect answer when consumers are ready for a "consumer-to-farm" rather than the current "farm-to-consumer" approach. The multidisciplinary research and educational efforts will address the role of healthy foods to improve eye, brain, and heart health while reducing the risk of cancer. Through this connection, this review is an attempt to provide insight and historical perspectives on some of the bioactive compounds from the day of discovery to their current status. The bioactive compounds discussed in this review are flavonoids, carotenoids, curcumin, ascorbic acid, and citrus limonoids.

The Chemistry and Pharmacology of Citrus Limonoids

“…Newly isolated limonoids will be reported and a wide (but not exhaustive) overview on recent findings concerning limonoid bioactivity will be given. Further references focusing on limonoid biological activities may be found in several excellent previous reviews [1,15,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. Most of the references reviewed herein derive from Reaxys database.…”

Identification of a Bifunctional Maize C- and O-Glucosyltransferase

“…For example, C-glycosyl flavones inhibit pancreatic lipases, allowing their applications as chemopreventive compounds against obesity (21). In addition, because of their potential antioxidant properties, they are commonly used as nutraceutical components in the human diet (22,23). Although the early metabolic steps resulting in flavanone formation and the branching point for the formation of different classes of flavonoids are well characterized in plants (24), the genes involved in the biosynthesis of glycosyl flavones in maize have not yet been fully identified (16).…”

Peels of Lemon and Orange as Value-Added Ingredients: Chemical and Antioxidant Properties

“…sugars, flavonoids, carotenoids, folic acid, vitamin C, pectin and essential oils present are very useful for food industry and human health. Also, citrus peels are good source of phenolic compounds can be extracted and employed as natural antioxidants to prevent oxidation of some foods or may be utilized in designing functional foods (Patil et al, 2009;Albishi et al, 2013). Citrus peels described as rich source of unique phenolic compounds to citrus, especially the characteristic flavanone glycosides (mainly naringin, hesperidin, narirutin, and neo hesperidin).…”