The Biological Activity Of Phytochemicals

This is the first volume to be published under a new series agreement for Recent Advances in Phytochemistry, co-published with the Phytochemical Society of North America.

CRC Handbook of Biologically Active Phytochemicals and Their Activities presents an alphabetical catalog of some 3,000 biologically active phytochemicals (elements and compounds) from higher plants. The data includes at least one and in some cases as many as 25 biological activities for each phytochemical. The book's tables also provide data on effective dose, inhibitory concentrations, and lethal and/or toxic doses. Entries after 1990 indicate the source of the data. CRC Handbook of Biologically Active Phytochemicals and Their Activities makes it possible for the first time to locate the concentration of many compounds in plants and compare this data with dosage information to calculate how much of a given plant food it would take to cause lethality, antioxidant activity, hypoglycemic activity, or artemicidal activity. These handy tables of hard-to-find information make this book an indispensable resource for pharmacologists, toxicologists, nutritionists, pharmacognocists, and food scientists.

Phytochemicals are biologically active compounds present in plants used for food and medicine. A great deal of interest has been generated recently in the isolation, characterization and biological activity of these phytochemicals. This book is in response to the need for more current and global scope of phytochemicals. It contains chapters written by internationally recognized authors. The topics covered in the book range from their occurrence, chemical and physical characteristics, analytical procedures, biological activity, safety and industrial applications. The book has been planned to meet the needs of the researchers, health professionals, government regulatory agencies and industries. This book will serve as a standard reference book in this important and fast growing area of phytochemicals, human nutrition and health.

Global dietary recommendations emphasize the consumption of plant-based foods for the prevention and management of chronic diseases. Plants contain many biologically active compounds referred to as phytochemicals or functional ingredients. These compounds play an important role in human health. Prior to establishing the safety and health benefits of these compounds, they must first be isolated, purified, and their physico-chemical properties established. Once identified, their mechanisms of actions are studied. The chapters are arranged in the order from isolation, purification and identification to in vivo and clinical studies, there by covering not only the analytical procedures used but also their nutraceutical and therapeutic properties.

Phytochemicals from Medicinal Plants: Scope, Applications and Potential Health Claims explores the importance of medicinal plants and their potential benefits for human health. This book looks at bioactive compounds from medicinal plants, the health benefits of bioactive compounds, the applications of plant-based products in the food and pharmaceutical industries. The first section discusses available sources of bioactive compounds from medicinal plants, biochemistry, structural composition, potential biological activities, and how bioactive molecules are isolated from medicinal plants. The authors examine the applications of bioactive molecules from a health perspective, looking at the pharmacological aspects of medicinal plants, the phytochemical and biological activities of different natural products, and ethnobotany/and medicinal properties, and also present a novel dietary approach for disease management. The book goes on to examine the plant-based products are used and can be used in various sectors of the food and pharmaceutical industries.

Medicinal plants are used to treat diseases and provide health benefits, and their applications are increasing around the world. A huge array of phytochemicals have been identified from medicinal plants, belonging to carotenoids, flavonoids, lignans, and phenolic acids, and so on, with a wide range of biological activities. In order to explore our knowledge of phytochemicals with the assistance of modern molecular tools and high-throughput technologies, this book collects recent innovative original research and review articles on subtopics of mechanistic insights into bioactivities, treatment of diseases, profiling, extraction and identification, and biotechnology.

Epidemiological evidence from the last fifty years has demonstrated that nutrition plays a decisive role in human health. Eating properly is not only necessary to meet energy demands. It also actively contributes, through both preventive actions and therapeutic effects, to improving human wellness. Nutrition owes its functional role in human health to the biological activity of specific, small dietary molecules. Plants are the most important source of bioactive molecules, and dietary phytochemicals are mainly responsible for the documented protective effects of diets which are rich in plant foods. Dietary phytochemicals have attracted increasing interest in human nutrition research over the past few years due to their ability to exert several biological effects that are potentially useful for human health, In this Special Issue, the biological activity of dietary phytochemicals, either purified or in extracts from plant foods, and their potential effects on human health are addressed and investigated.