Nature’s gifts: antioxidants from vegetables and fruits

In all oxygen consuming cells, metabolism and oxidative stress generate several intermediates and by products that are collectively known as reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS are necessary intermediates in the human body, but, due to their strong oxidizing power, they are also involved in the aging process and in the development of many degenerative diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Biological antioxidants are able to dispose of ROS. In recent years, clinical trials and epidemiological studies have shown an inverse relationship between the consumption of fruits and vegetables and degenerative diseases and a direct correlation between antioxidant laden food and good health; one major drawback to these latter studies has been determining the antioxidant capacity of these foods and analyzing their specific molecules. For the identification and quantitation of principal active components of some vegetables and fruits like Rosa Canina hips and Citrus species, a fast analytical method based on capillary electrophoresis coupled to diode array detector (CE-DAD) has been developed. Separation of quercetin, catechin, epicatechin, resveratrol and ascorbic acid was obtained in a single run by using a fused silica capillary and a background electrolyte composed of tetraborate buffer (voltage = 15 kV). The development of HPLC-DAD and GC-FID methods is now in progress for the analysis of carotenoids.