Abstract
Natural polyphenols are valuable compounds possessing scavenging properties towards radical oxygen species, and complexing properties towards proteins. These abilities make polyphenols interesting for the treatment of various diseases like inflammation or cancer, but also for anti-ageing purposes in cosmetic formulations, or for nutraceutical applications. Unfortunately, these properties are also responsible for a lack in long-term stability, making these natural compounds very sensitive to light and heat. Moreover, polyphenols often present a poor biodisponibility mainly due to low water solubility. Lastly, many of these molecules possess a very astringent and bitter taste, which limits their use in food or in oral medications. To circumvent these drawbacks, delivery systems have been developed, and among them, encapsulation would appear to be a promising approach. Many encapsulation methods are described in the literature, among which some have been successfully applied to plant polyphenols. In this review, after a general presentation of the large chemical family of plant polyphenols and of their main chemical and biological properties, encapsulation processes applied to polyphenols are classified into physical, physico-chemical, chemical methods, and other connected stabilization methods. After a brief description of each encapsulation process, their applications to polyphenol encapsulation for pharmaceutical, food or cosmetological purposes are presented.
Highlights
Polyphenols are secondary metabolites present in all vascular plants, and constitute a large family of ubiquitous and varied substances, from simple molecules to complex structures
New works led by Paramera et al showed that the stability and release properties of curcumin encapsulated in Saccharomyces cerevisiae offers a better thermal protection (200 °C) than ß-cyclodextrins or spray-drying with modified starches [129]
Polyphenols are among the most powerful active compounds synthesized by plants, and show a unique combination of chemical, biological and physiological activities
Summary
Polyphenols are secondary metabolites present in all vascular plants, and constitute a large family of ubiquitous and varied substances, from simple molecules to complex structures. Hepatoprotector, Podophyllotoxin, seed, cereals (rye, of phytoestrogens, antimitotic, Steganacin wheat, oat, barley), relatively stable under antiviral, cruciferous normal conditions, water antihypertensive vegetables soluble, unpleasant and cytostatic (broccoli, cabbage), flavour activities, and fruit (apricots, inhibitors of strawberries) enzymatic reactions. These valuable natural compounds’s uses are substantially limited [38]. A small proportion of molecules administered orally are absorbed, because of insufficient gastric residence time, low permeability and/or low solubility Their instability during food processing, distribution or storage, or in the gastrointestinal tract (pH, enzymes, presence of other nutrients), limits the activity and the potential health benefits of polyphenols. Some remarkable nanoencapsulation results will be presented, encapsulation of natural polyphenols on the micro scale will be the main topic of this article
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