Nutraceuticals, A New Challenge for Medicinal Chemistry

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.

Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents (NADES) as a Tool for Bioavailability Improvement: Pharmacokinetics of Rutin Dissolved in Proline/Glycine after Oral Administration in Rats: Possible Application in Nutraceuticals

“…Considering the solubility properties nine NADES (2,3,4,10,11,17,28,29,30) were able to solubilize half of the rutin compared to the best solvent (ethanol). On the other hand, eutectic 11 and 28 (proline/glutamic acid 2:1 and proline/choline chloride 1:2 respectively) resulted to be the most promising NADES presenting rutin solubilization higher than ethanol and methanol.…”

“…Due to their safety level, the most commonly used solvents for nutraceutical production are water, ethanol or aqueous ethanol mixtures. Unfortunately, these mixtures may be scarcely efficient in extraction due to the variable nature and polarity of extractable bioactive compounds [1][2][3][4]. Additionally, many claimed active ingredients of nutraceuticals have poor bioavailability.…”

Fragmentation of the main triterpene acids of apple by LC‐APCI‐MSn

“…The observation of [M‐H] − ions together with low energy collision–induced dissociations occurring in the ion trap are suitable for tentative identification of triterpene acid constituents of apple. The analysis of triterpene composition of apple or other fruits can be a new opportunity for the development of functional foods, nutraceuticals, or food‐derived products with health‐promoting properties …”

Cytotoxic and Enzyme Inhibitory Potential of Two Potentilla species (P. speciosa L. and P. reptans Willd.) and Their Chemical Composition

“…Currently, studies on natural products and medicinal plants are one of the most important subjects in pharmaceutical area (Sut et al, 2016). In these studies, many plants or plant-derived products are suggested as potential agents for designing new pharmaceuticals or food ingredients (Raskin et al, 2002).…”