Natural Antioxidants in Food and Human Health

Dear Colleagues,

Natural antioxidants comprise a wide and diverse group of bioactive compounds found in plants and plant-derived foods. These include bioactive peptides, vitamins, phenolics, carotenoids and other secondary metabolites that play essential roles in protecting plant tissues against biotic and abiotic oxidative stress. In food systems, oxidative degradation, particularly lipid oxidation, remains one of the most significant challenges for industry, as it compromises nutritional value, safety and sensory attributes. The use of natural antioxidants has therefore become a crucial strategy to delay or prevent oxidation during processing, storage and distribution. Beyond their technological importance, natural antioxidants also exhibit a broad spectrum of biological activities. These compounds may act through multiple mechanisms, including free radical scavenging, metal chelation and modulation of inflammatory pathways triggered by xenobiotics, environmental stressors, or pathogenic microorganisms. This Special Issue invites manuscripts that examine the antioxidant properties of natural compounds present in plants, plant foods and related by-products, as well as their metabolites and derivatives. Original research articles and review papers exploring the impact of natural antioxidants on agronomy, plant science, food science, nutrition and human health are welcome.

Dr. Adriano Costa de Camargo
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2700 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.