Review article

POLYPHENOLS AND FLAVONOIDS IN HONEY

Harun Kurtagić orcid.org/0000-0001-6348-2703 ; Federal Institute of Agriculture, Butmirska cesta 40, 71000 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

The plant produces all biologically active ingredients of the food. Secondary metabolites of plants that are responsible for the beneficial effects in plants and other organisms but it can produce only plants. Therapeutic properties of plants is mainly based on the activity of polyphenol, of which special place occupy the flavonoids. Honeybees (Appis melifera) colecting nectar, pollen and honeydew brings in the hive poliphenols that are widely distributed in the plant world. Although the content of polyphenols in honey are relatively small, but they are very meritorious for its medicinal qualities. Bee embeds them in honey in the form of what they plant produced, in free form or the form of glycosides. Their number, and the amount of which can be found in honey varies in relation to the whole range of factors such as the quality of bee season, season of collecting honey, geographic area, etc. Science has found that plants produce several thousand different polyphenols and their common characteristics are preventing the emergence of a disease while in plants that in mammals and human. Their basic action is based on preventing the emergence of highly reactive free radicals. Their chemical structure is based on the phenylpropanoic structure (C6-C3-C6) and their biological activity on the number, position and type of the substituents. Most of the results of the research were made on the content of total polyphenols in honey and the contents of only a small number of flavonoids like flavonols quercetin and kamferol or flavonon naringenin. Some flavonoids are marked as markers of a certain varieties of honey. The largest number of studies of the content of flavonoids was made in the aromatic and medicinal plants, fruits, vegetables and teas. Due to the exceptional importance of these compounds for the live it should be expected that their scientific research to further intensify. The honey as a special gift of nature has always been named as a food and medicine, however, his healing powers is not fully explored, it is therefore to be expected that there will be scientific research qualitative and the quantitative content of flavonoids in honey and other bee products will continue.

Keywords

flavonoids; polyphenols; antioxidants; plants; honey

Hrčak ID:

182928

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/182928

Publication date:

12.6.2017.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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