Antioxidant, Anti-Inflammatory, and Microbial-Modulating Activities of Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods

Oxidative stress is defined as the imbalance between reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation and enzymatic and nonenzymatic antioxidant defence favouring the former. Thus, enhanced oxidative stress occurs when ROS formation is increased by an array of exogenous and endogenous factors, for example, smoking, exposure to pollution, unhealthy diet, and chronic/low-grade inflammation, when the antioxidant defence capacity is compromised or both. Enhanced oxidative stress has been appreciated for its contribution to the pathogenesis of noncommunicable diseases (e.g., cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, cancer, and brain disorders). Thus, to protect and prevent ROS-related pathogenesis, enhancing antioxidant defence through diets appears to be a viable strategy. From that, the antioxidant activity and the phytochemicals' content of foods and traditional medicine plants are an interesting topic of research. Antioxidant and antiproliferative activities, related to the content of phenolics, have been reported by M. N. Ombra et al. for twelve common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) cultivars and by D. Zaluski et al. for the Eleutherococcus senticosus fruits intractum. I. Urquiaga et al. reported the antioxidant activity of berries' concentrate in humans after meal and discussed this result in terms of oxidative reactions that occur during digestion and the thermal processing of red meat