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Current Medicinal Chemistry

Editor-in-Chief

ISSN (Print): 0929-8673
ISSN (Online): 1875-533X

Review Article

Nutraceuticals, A New Challenge for Medicinal Chemistry

Author(s): Stefania Sut, Valeria Baldan, Marta Faggian, Gregorio Peron and Stefano Dall`Acqua

Volume 23, Issue 28, 2016

Page: [3198 - 3223] Pages: 26

DOI: 10.2174/0929867323666160615104837

Price: $65

Abstract

“Nutraceuticals” are food-derived products largely used for their presumed healthpromoting or disease-preventing effects. In the recent years, many efforts have been aimed at assessing nutraceutical efficacy and safety, but these factors are difficult to address because of the complex chemical compositions and multiple mode of actions. Thus, the study of nutraceutical ingredients poses several challenges for the medicinal chemistry field, some of which are related to extraction and chemical characterization, some to in vitro and in vivo bioactivity evaluation, and some to the bioavailability and interaction of these natural mixtures with organs and microbiota. Furthermore, because of their nature as medicinal and food products, these nutraceuticals can also be considered as a valuable source of new “lead compounds”, creating the opportunity to discover new classes of therapeutic agents. This review provides information on these themes, showing the new challenges that comprehensive medicinal chemistry research is called to answer in the field of nutraceuticals.

Keywords: Nutraceuticals, natural products, metabolomics, antioxidants, flavonoids, microbiota.

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