Exploring the nutraceutical power of tibetan goji berries: an analytical study

The Goji Berry is the fruit of Lycium barbarum and Lycium chinense, two very closely related species in the Solanaceae family, native of southeastern Europe and Asia. Goji is one of the most powerful plants in Chinese herbal medicine. It is considered a national treasure in Tibet, where it is known as “the key to eternal youth”, thanks to its significant antioxidant properties. It is often cultivated for a variety of food and beverage applications within China, but increasingly today for export as dried berries, juice and pulp or grounds. The wide-ranging properties of the Goji Berry can be explained by its composition: it is extremely rich in carotenoids, Vitamins C, B1, B2 and other vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and amino acids. Various studies have shown that Goji fruits possess numerous beneficial properties, including, antioxidant, immuno-potentiating, antimutagenic, hypoglycaemic, hypolipemic, hypotensive, all of which contribute to the slowing down of the aging process. In order to fully understand the composition of these potentially beneficial fruits, it is very useful to develop innovative analytical methods, able to provide reliable measurements of their content in bioactive substances. The goal of this research is the quali-quantitative evaluation in Goji Berry samples of antioxidant phenolic compounds by means of a HPLC method coupled to spectrofluorimetric (F) detection. The HPLC-F method is fully validated and the preliminary results, obtained from the application to some real commercial samples of fresh Goji Berries, extracts and powders, are very interesting and useful to explore the nutraceutical power of these tibetan fruits.