Evaluation of bioactive properties of pollen extracts as functional dietary food supplement

Abstract

Bee-collected pollen is an apicultural product which is composed of nutritionally valuable substances and contains considerable amounts polyphenol substances (8.2 mg/g) which may act as potent antioxidants. By preparing ethanol, methanol/water and water extracts of natural pollen the content of polyphenol compounds could be significantly increased (21.4–24.6 mg/g). Correspondingly, bee-collected pollen extracts show considerable antiradical activity (PI: 35% inhibition) which is significantly increased in the pollen extracts (PI: 39–53% inhibition). The highest degree of radical scavenging activity is found in the ethanol extract, which also has the highest concentration of polyphenol substances. For this reason, it can be assumed that there is a general correlation between the content of total polyphenols and the antioxidant and radical scavenging activity of the pollen preparations. Thus, the prepared extracts of bee-collected flower pollen may be regarded as effective natural and functional dietary food supplement due to their remarkable content of polyphenol substances and significant radical scavenging capacity with special regard to their nutritional–physiological implications and their health promoting effect.