Natural Antioxidants: Determination in Food and Nutraceuticals and Implications on Human Health
A special issue of BioTech (ISSN 2673-6284). This special issue belongs to the section "Agricultural and Food Biotechnology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 December 2024 | Viewed by 8349
Special Issue Editor
Interests: metabolomics; phytochemistry; natural products; secondary metabolites; agri-food byproducts; chromatography; mass spectrometry
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
In recent years, the use of natural products around the world has increased. Vegetable-based diets are spreading as a consequence of people’s higher conscience concerning matters of animal wellbeing, climate change, and the nutritional/health properties of food. Nutraceuticals are also gaining wide attention, due to their supposed beneficial effects on health. Several botanicals that are currently used as ingredients in food supplements are known for their antioxidant properties and can exert preventive activity against aging-related diseases such as neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancer. However, the mechanism of action of antioxidants is a long-term matter of debate among scientists. It has been demonstrated that these compounds can neutralize reactive molecular species and prevent direct oxidative damage to biological macromolecules. Alternatively, antioxidants can induce the endogenous redox defense, for example, by up-regulating the expression of detoxifying enzymes and modulating their activity. Several antioxidants can elicit other biological roles in the human organism after ingestion, and in this context, their interaction with the gut microbiota is of high relevance. Intestinal microbes can degrade these compounds, producing lower-molecular-weight metabolites that can exert their activity on the intestinal wall or in other districts of the body, upon absorption.
Antioxidants are also important for food quality because they can prevent oxidative degradation, thus delaying the deterioration of foods and preserving their nutritional and functional properties. For instance, the characteristic polyphenols of olive oil such as oleuropein and hydroxytyrosol are important for both product quality and consumer health. Several food processing techniques and storage methods can cause the modification (typically oxidation) of antioxidants contained in food, leading to significant losses of these compounds. For this reason, optimization of all the procedures involved in the preparation, transformation, and conservation of foods is needed.
This Special Issue will be dedicated to chemical, biological, and technological aspects related to antioxidants in foods, natural products, and nutraceuticals. Scientific works dedicated to the chemical characterization of antioxidants in products destined for human use are welcome, as well as works dealing with their extraction, isolation, and formulation in nutritional supplements. Articles focused on the optimization of laboratory and larger-scale procedures intended to prevent the degradation and loss of antioxidants in food and other products will also be of high interest, as well as others dealing with the assessment of their bioactivity and toxicity in cellular, animal, and human models.
Dr. Gregorio Peron
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. BioTech is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- natural antioxidants
- antioxidants in food
- nutraceuticals
- chemical characterization
- NMR
- mass spectrometry
- chromatography
- bioassays
- food quality
- animal models
Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue
- Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
- Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
- Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
- External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
- e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.
Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.