Phenolic Composition and Antioxidant Properties of Brazilian Honeys

Abstract

The antioxidant activities and polyphenolic levels of "assa peixe," "cambara," and "morrão de candeia" Brazilian honeys were investigated. Phenolic extracts of 11 honeys were evaluated spectrophotometrically to determine their total phenolic and flavonoid contents, and their antioxidant activities were measured using DPPH, ABTS, and FRAP assays. High-performance liquid chromatography coupled with diode array detection was applied to determine the phenolic composition of the honey extracts. The presence of fourteen phenolic compounds was established (eleven phenolic acids and three flavonoids), as well as HMF and abscisic acid. Principal component analysis was applied to classify the honey samples according to their floral origins.

Honey as a Functional Food

“…While the methanolic extraction is used in diferent proportions with water [1,44], there is still work using combined techniques of aqueous extraction, with heating or acidiication, and subsequent ethanol extraction [40,45]. Few studies conduct extraction with other solvents such as ethyl acetate [46].…”

“…Coupled with various detection techniques, such as a diode array detector (DAD) [1,21,40,47] and/or mass spectrometry, it enables both identiication and quantiication of polyphenols [42,45,46]. Since phenolic components can vary greatly, the suitable technique is liquid chromatography coupled with various types of mass detection, LC-MS enables high selectivity, sensitivity and universality when analyzing various polyphenolic components in their complex matrices.…”

“…Tandem mass spectrometry is the detection method of choice when a comprehensive analysis of nontarget analyte is needed [46].…”

“…This is the case of chlorogenic acid, which is the combination of quinic acid and cafeic acid [49,50]. All cited phenolic acids have been described in honey samples in diferent concentrations according to the lora collected by honeybees [40,46].…”

“…Flavonoids are compounds that possess the diphenylpropane skeleton: two benzene rings linked through oxygen containing a pyran or pyrone ring [46] (Figure 4). Flavonoids are a group of substances comprising classes of lavonols, lavones, lavonones, isolavones, anthocyanins and catechins.…”