Natural phenolic compounds play an important role in cancer prevention and treatment. Phenolic compounds from medicinal herbs and dietary plants include phenolic acids, flavonoids, tannins, stilbenes, curcuminoids, coumarins, lignans, quinones, and others. Various bioactivities of phenolic compounds are responsible for their chemopreventive properties (e.g., antioxidant, anticarcinogenic, or antimutagenic and anti-inflammatory effects) and also contribute to their inducing apoptosis by arresting cell cycle, regulating carcinogen metabolism and ontogenesis expression, inhibiting DNA binding and cell adhesion, migration, proliferation or differentiation, and blocking signaling pathways. This review covers the most recent literature to summarize structural categories and molecular anticancer mechanisms of phenolic compounds from medicinal herbs and dietary plants.

Berries are a good source of natural antioxidants. In the present study, the total antioxidant capacity and phenolic composition of three berry fruits (blueberry, blackberry, and strawberry) cultivated in Nanjing were investigated. Blueberry, with a Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) value of 14.98 mmol Trolox/100 g dry weight (DW), exhibited the strongest total antioxidant capacity using both the 2,2-azinobis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) diammonium salt (ABTS) and the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) methods. Blueberry also had the highest total phenolic content (TPC, 9.44 mg gallic acid/g DW), total flavonoid content (TFC, 36.08 mg rutin/g DW), and total anthocyanidin content (TAC, 24.38 mg catechin/g DW). A preliminary analysis using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) showed that the blueberry, blackberry, and strawberry samples tested contained a range of phenolic acids (including gallic acid, protocatechuic acid, p-hydroxybenzoic acid, vanillic acid, caffeic acid, p-coumaric acid, ferulic acid, ellagic acid, and cinnamic acid) and various types of flavonoids (flavone: luteolin; flavonols: rutin, myricetin, quercetrin, and quercetin; flavanols: gallocatechin, epigallocatechin, catechin, and catechin gallate; anthocyanidins: malvidin-3-galactoside, malvidin-3-glucoside, and cyanidin). In particular, the blueberries had high levels of proanthocyanidins and anthocyanidins, which might be responsible for their strong antioxidant activities. These results indicate a potential market role for berries (especially blueberries) as a functional food ingredient or nutraceutical.

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Oxidative stress and vascular inflammatory response are key mediators of endothelial dysfunction that leads to cardiovascular diseases. A novel peptide, IRW, was previously characterized from egg protein with angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitory activity. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects and molecular mechanisms of IRW on regulating inflammatory response in endothelial cells. The results showed that tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) significantly increased the protein levels of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1), and monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1), whereas pretreatment with IRW inhibited TNF-α-induced increases of ICAM-1, VCAM-1, and MCP-1 production in a concentration-dependent manner. IRW also reduced the levels of superoxide ions in the presence and absence of TNF-α. These results indicate the potential role of IRW in preventing cardiovascular disease as a functional food ingredient or nutraceutical.

Prevention and management of hypertension are the major public health challenges worldwide. Uncontrolled high blood pressure may lead to a shortened life expectancy and a higher morbidity due to a high risk of cardiovascular complications such as coronary heart disease (which leads to heart attack) and stroke, congestive heart failure, heart rhythm irregularities, and kidney failure etc. In recent years, it has been recognized that many dietary constituents may contribute to human cardiovascular health. There has been an increased focus on identifying these natural components of foods, describing their physiological activities and mechanisms of actions. Grain, vegetables, fruits, milk, cheese, meat, chicken, egg, fish, soybean, tea, wine, mushrooms, and lactic acid bacteria are various food sources with potential antihypertensive effects. Their main bioactive constituents include angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory peptides, vitamins C and E, flavonoids, flavanols, cathecins, anthocyanins, phenolic acids, polyphenols, tannins, resveratrol, polysaccharides, fiber, saponin, sterols, as well as K, Ca, and P. They may reduce blood pressure by different mechanisms, such as ACE inhibition effect, antioxidant, vasodilatory, opiate-like, Ca(2+) channel blocking, and chymase inhibitory activities. These functional foods may provide new therapeutic applications for hypertension prevention and treatment, and contribute to a healthy cardiovascular population. The present review summarizes the antihypertensive food sources and their bioactive constituents, as well as physiological mechanisms of dietary products, especially focusing on ACE inhibitory activity.

Blueberry fruits have a wide range of health benefits because of their abundant anthocyanins, which are natural antioxidants. The purpose of this study was to investigate the inhibitory effect of blueberry's two main anthocyanins (malvidin-3-glucoside and malvidin-3-galactoside) on inflammatory response in endothelial cells. These two malvidin glycosides could inhibit tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) induced increases of monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1), intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), and vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) production both in the protein and mRNA levels in a concentration-dependent manner. Mv-3-glc at the concentration of 1 μM could inhibit 35.9% increased MCP-1, 54.4% ICAM-1, and 44.7% VCAM-1 protein in supernatant, as well as 9.88% MCP-1 and 48.6% ICAM-1 mRNA expression (p < 0.05). In addition, they could decrease IκBα degradation (Mv-3-glc, Mv-3-gal, and their mixture at the concentration of 50 μM had the inhibition rate of 84.8%, 75.3%, and 43.2%, respectively, p < 0.01) and block the nuclear translocation of p65, which suggested their anti-inflammation mechanism was mediated by the nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) OPEN ACCESSMolecules 2014, 19 12828 pathway. In general malvidin-3-glucoside had better anti-inflammatory effect than malvidin-3-galactoside. These results indicated that blueberry is good resource of anti-inflammatory anthocyanins, which can be promising molecules for the development of nutraceuticals to prevent chronic inflammation in many diseases.

The total phenolic content (TFC), total flavonoid content (TFC), antioxidant activity, and polyphenol composition of extracts of rabbiteye blueberry fruit polyphenols (BBFPs), rabbiteye blueberry pomace polyphenols (BBPPs), and rabbiteye blueberry leaves polyphenols (BBLPs) were investigated. The highest TPC and TFC were found in the extract of BBLPs, followed by the extracts of BBPPs and BBFPs. The extract of BBLPs exhibited the highest antioxidant activity according to five antioxidant methods. All three samples exhibited significantly higher antioxidant activity than the positive control rutin. HPLC-DAD-MS(n) analysis showed that the extract of BBFPs contained nine different anthocyanins, while the extract of BBPPs contained only four of them. In addition, four caffeoylquinic acids, quercetin, and its three derivatives were detected in the extract of BBLPs. The results indicate that the fruits, pomace, and leaves of rabbiteye blueberry were good sources of polyphenols and natural antioxidants. These could be useful as a functional food ingredient beneficial to human health.