Antioxidants as modulators in health and disease: an analytical point of view

Nutraceutical, a portmanteau of the words “nutrition” and “pharmaceutical”, originally defined by Dr. Stephen De Felice, refers to the foodstuffs and the active compounds in food that provide health and medical benefits, including the prevention and treatment of disease. Nutraceutical products should deserve the same consideration as pharmaceutical formulations, undergoing suitable scientific, experimental and clinical studies; in fact, it is known that 80% of the dossiers examined by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) has been rejected due to the insufficient documentation of biological activity and chemical composition. The modern nutraceutical market began to develop in Japan during the 1980s; nowadays the nutraceutical industry has grown alongside the expansion and exploration of modern technology. Food and derivatives, functional food and dietary supplements are drawing much attention from the scientific community for their potential antioxidant, anti-inflammation, immunostimulating and chemopreventive effects. The biodiversity of the considered foods is really a treasure to be preserved, and especially in reference to the products of secondary metabolism. In particular, several molecules with antioxidant activity can have important beneficial effects in the prevention of pathologies such as the metabolic syndrome, cognitive deficits and chronic inflammation. The purpose of this study is the development of original and reliable chromatographic and electrophoretic methods for the identification and quantification of antioxidants molecules in some nutraceutical food or supplements. Compounds belonging to chemical classes particularly interesting from a healthcare perspective such as carotenoids, oligomeric proanthocyanidins and oligoelements are under investigation. Moreover, the in vitro antioxidant power, both on pure compounds and on whole foods or supplements will be check. In fact, it is important to objectively evaluate the real antioxidant power of the studied compounds and their possible different behaviour in different environments: in the natural matrices, in dietary supplements and as pure compounds. Preliminary assays are promising and the validation of analytical methods is in progress.