Biotechnology Engineering

Life Sciences department

Nanoscience

NRC:2448

Name: Jose Hernandez

November 11, 2015

Date:
Antioxidants

Improve human health is easy if you eat fruits and vegetables, The
World Health organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of
the United Nations recommend eating at least 400 g of fruits and
vegetables per day, so you can avoid chronic diseases like hearth
disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity.
The use of antioxidants in food was practiced since antiquity when
populations living in hot climates add spices to food for extend their
shelf life and avoid spoilage, nowadays the use of antioxidants spices
became commonplace. We can define antioxidants as substances that
when present in food control the oxidation and deterioration of food
quality, in our body, antioxidants prevents the risk of degenerative
diseases produced by oxidative stress and ROS. There are two kinds of
antioxidants primary and secondary. The primary antioxidants are those
that neutralize free radicals and secondary antioxidants are those that
neutralize prooxidant catalysis. There are also synthetic antioxidants but
they have carcinogenic effect in animals at high concentrations, for that
reason more interest has focused on studying natural antioxidants.
Phenolic and polyphenolic compounds are secondary metabolites that
are produced in plants and are synthetized via shikimic acid pathway.
The precursors of these antioxidants are phenylalanine and tyrosine.
Some plant phenolic compounds have been considered as antioxidants
and are commercially produced. Examples of these are: rosemary
extract, green tea and mixed tocopherols. Phenolic compounds with
antioxidant potential can also be find into wine from wood barrels used
in storage and aging.
The mechanism by which antioxidants make their job depends on the
compositional characteristics of the food, the beneficial health effects of
consuming plant foods if achieved by preventing lipid oxidation, protein
cross linking and DNA mutation. However, there are many other
mechanisms by which antioxidants render their effects that have nothing
to do with their antioxidant efficacy like apoptosis of cancerous cells,
effects on cell differentiation, blocking the formation of N-nitrosamine,
and affecting enzyme activity.

In the body free radicals are involved in many diseases and tissue
injuries such as those of the lung, heart, cardiovascular system, kidneys,
liver, eye, skin, muscle, brain and aging process. Oxidants and radicals
mediate these disorders but they are neutralized by antioxidant
enzymes in healthy individuals. With advancing age and in less healthy
individuals the endogenous antioxidants may require exogenous
assistance from dietary antioxidants to maintain the integrity of cell
membranes and other actions.
Antioxidants that are legally permitted for use in foods must have and
required daily intake, this reason has limited the use of antioxidants like
vitamins A, C, and E, as well as selenium. However, the other
antioxidants that are commercially used are disguised under the label of
flavourant or binder. Efforts in the future should be made to change the
legal status of other substances that have antioxidant value in stabilizing
food, promoting health and reducing disease risk.
Consuming fruit juices has become a dietary concern worldwide,
because fruit juices retain the physicochemical and organoleptical
characteristics of fruits from which they are produced, health benefits of
fruit juices are attributed to a large number of compounds with biological
activity present in these foods. The major bioactive antioxidant
compounds of fruit and vegetables juices are vitamin C, phenolic
compounds and carotenoids they have biological functions like reduce
the risk of cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, preventing
cancer and avoid age related macular degeneration.
For these reasons the market of fruit juices is growing, and new products
like blended fruit juice have been designed by mixing different fruit
juices that increase concentration of selected bioactive compounds,
adds new nutrients or improves flavor and appearance.
It has been reported that absorption of bioactive compounds in fruit
exceeds the after consumption of intact fruits for that the bioavailability
of these substances could be also enhanced by blended fruit juices.
To measure the bioavailability of antioxidants, some in vitro
methodologies have been designed as a simple and fast approach to in
vivo trials. One of these methodologies is in vitro gastrointestinal
digestion, that use dialysis in a cellulose membrane to measure the
presence of the different antioxidants like phenolic compounds and
vitamin C.
Antioxidants have many application in food industry and their use is
focused in avoid degenerative diseases, and preserve the human health.
There are many other applications that havent been discovered yet.