Journal
CRITICAL REVIEWS IN FOOD SCIENCE AND NUTRITION
Volume 63, Issue 19, Pages 3734-3749Publisher
TAYLOR & FRANCIS INC
DOI: 10.1080/10408398.2021.1993127
Keywords
Metabonomics; natural product; food chemistry; authentication; drug discovery
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Phytochemicals are important bioactive components found in natural products. The identification of their main bioactive molecules and their mechanisms of action in the human body was previously unknown but is now made possible through the development of metabolomics. This review discusses the importance of key dietary phytochemicals and their potential functions for human health, and highlights the use of untargeted metabolomics as the most common method for studying phytochemicals in foods.
Phytochemicals are important bioactive components present in natural products. Although the health benefits of many food products are well-known and accepted as a common knowledge, the identity of the main bioactive molecules and the mechanism by which they interact in the body of human are often unknown. It was only in the last 30 years when the field of metabolomics had matured that the identification of such molecules with bioactivity has been made possible through the development of instruments to separate and computational techniques to characterize complex samples. This in turn has enabled in vitro studies to quantify the biological activity of the respective phytochemical either in mice models or in humans. In this review, the importance of key dietary phytochemicals such as phenolic acids, flavonoids, carotenoids, resveratrol, curcumin, and capsaicinoids are discussed together with their potential functions for human health. Untargeted metabolomics, in particular, liquid chromatography mass spectrometry, is the most used method to isolate, identify and profile bioactive compounds in the study of phytochemicals in foods. The application of metabolomics in drug discovery is a common practice nowadays and has boosted the drug and/or supplement manufacturing sector.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available