Abstract

TAVARES, Lucélia; FERREIRA, Ricardo B.  and  SANTOS, Cláudia Nunes dos. Physiological Approach in the Study of Polyphenols Impact in Human Health: the Case of Portuguese Wild Blackberries. Nutrícias [online]. 2013, n.16, pp.16-18. ISSN 2182-7230.

Aging and related diseases have assumed in the last years a great importance in the society. The possible prevention of these diseases by nutritional intervention has driven the research of certain phytochemicals classes, such as polyphenols. Blackberry polyphenols have been shown as able to modulate several aspects related with neurodegenerative diseases. Therefore, blackberries are presented as candidates to functional food in neurodegeneration prevention. The majority of in vitro studies performed aiming to evaluate effects of polyphenols from food in the human organism had low physiological relevance. Aspects that must be considered in these sort of studies are: mimic the digestive process that food is subjected when ingested, evaluation of polyphenols concentrations that could be found in human plasma and evaluation of polyphenols in mixture, not in the isolated form. Considering these particularities of food phytochemicals research, the research of fruits potential for human health has been investigated, such as the potential of wild Portuguese blackberries in the neurodegeneration prevention. Wild blackberries were considered potential sources of polyphenols promoting an efficient neuronal protection. It was also verified that beneficial effects mediated by those blackberries are due to molecular adaptive mechanisms, also known as preconditioning and not to their antioxidant capacity.

Keywords : Blackberries, Gastrointestinal digestion; Neurodegeneration; Polyphenols.

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