Biological Properties of Honeysuckle (Lonicera caerulea L.): A Review: The nutrition, health properties of honeysuckle

Abstract

The honeysuckle (Lonicera caerulea L.) belonging to the Caprifoliaceae family, has been used for a long time in Chinese, Japanese and Russian folk medicine. Nowadays, the fruits of honeysuckle are becoming more and more popular also in Europe -mainly in Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia because of valuable medicinal properties and they are popularly used as an ingredient of dietary supplements and medicinal preparations. The fruits of Lonicera caerulea are rich in phenolics, especially anthocyanins and vitamin C. The major bioactive anthocyanin of haskap is cyanidin-3-O-glucoside (C3G). Consumption of high amounts of an antioxidant substance may have a positive impact on human health, particularly the prevention of cancer and inflammatory diseases. The berries of blue honeysuckle containing a significant amount of biologically active substances can be included into the group of so-called "superfruits". Consumers are constantly seeking better alternatives, healthier products of plant origin, to rule out negative aspects, and this will be an alternative to widely existing food products. In addition, the growing interest of producers in new products rich in health-promoting properties makes them more attractive to the consumer. The content and health properties of the fruit were identified to be dependent on the cultivar, genotype, and the place of harvesting. This paper reviews and highlights the limited nutritional and therapeutic information currently available on the honeysuckle.

Impact of the Addition of Fruits of Kamchatka Berries (L. caerulea var. kamtschatica) and Haskap (L. caerulea var. emphyllocalyx) on the Physicochemical Properties, Polyphenolic Content, Antioxidant Activity and Sensory Evaluation Craft Wheat Beers

“…kamtschatica ) fruits are characterised by a blue–purple colouring of the skin, the shape resembles an ellipsoidal cylinder, the taste is juicy, sweet and sour with a waxy coating [ 12 ]. They are mainly cultivated in Japan, China, Russia (Siberia, Kamchatka) and northern European countries [ 13 , 14 , 15 ]. The chemical composition of kamchatka berry fruit varies depending on the cultivar, agrotechnical conditions and harvest date [ 13 , 14 , 16 ].…”

“…They are mainly cultivated in Japan, China, Russia (Siberia, Kamchatka) and northern European countries [ 13 , 14 , 15 ]. The chemical composition of kamchatka berry fruit varies depending on the cultivar, agrotechnical conditions and harvest date [ 13 , 14 , 16 ]. Kamchatka berry fruits contain sugars (mainly fructose and glucose) and minerals including K, P, Ca, Fe or organic acids (citric acid predominates, with malic and phytic acids also present in smaller amounts [ 13 ]).…”

Health Benefits of Antioxidant Bioactive Compounds in the Fruits and Leaves of Lonicera caerulea L. and Aronia melanocarpa (Michx.) Elliot

“…This is important since few fruits are known to contain significant amounts. Loganic acid is dominant in haskap, while other iridoids, such as loganin and loganin pentosides, secologanin, secoxyloganin, sweroside, and pentosyl-sweroside, are found in lower concentrations [ 80 ]. Iridoids are also abundant in these fruits, with 1200–2700 mg/kg FW [ 54 ].…”

Variation of Fruits Morphometric Parameters and Iridoid Content of Lonicera caerulea L. Germplasm Collection

“…It should be highlighted that significant progress has been made in the industrial cultivation of L. caerulea and its processing in China (Huo et al, 2005;Zhao et al, 2015). Also, numerous studies on L. caerulea were conducted in European countries, such as the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, and Lithuania (Smolik et al, 2010;Jurikova et al, 2012;Bieniek et al, 2021;Grygorieva et al, 2021). The fruits of L. caerulea are used fresh or processed in many products such as jam, marmalade, jelly, compote, cake, juice, sauce, extracts, liqueur, smoothie, and wine (Liu et al, 2010;Klymenko et al, 2017;Senica et al, 2019).…”

“…The L. caerulea is highly appreciated for ultra-early fruit ripening, as well a high content of biologically active compounds (Khattab et al, 215;Peng et al, 2016;Kucharska et al, 2017;Bieniek et al, 2021;Cheng et al, 2022;Piekarska et al, 2022) with strong antioxidant (Bąkowska-Barczak et al, 2007;Gruia et al, 2008;Celli et al, 2014;Gao et al, 2016;Hsu et al, 2016), anti-inflammatory (Xu et al, 2007;Hsu et al, 2016;An et al, 2020), immunomodulating (Svarcova et al, 2007), antiviral (Svarcova et al, 2007), antifungal (Palikova et al, 2008), antiallergic (Svarcova et al, 2007), antibacterial (Celli et al, 2014), and immunotropic (Piekarska et al, 2022) properties.…”