Health-Promoting Components of Fruits and Vegetables in Human Health

Diet and lifestyle choices can substantially predispose an individual to, or protect against, many age- and obesity-related chronic diseases. According to the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements, dietary bioactives arecompounds in foodsnot needed for basic human nutrition but responsible for changes in health status.1 These compounds are safe at normal food consumption levels (e.g., anthocyanins in berries) and their biological activities may come from a single compound (e.g., lutein in spinach) or a class of compounds (e.g., avenanthramides in oats) even if the exact identity and composition are unknown. Bioactive compounds of plants; can vary significantly in their ratios and relative concentrations depending onfactors such as cultivation, soil, altitude, and weather conditions. Substantial scientific evidence is available for some health promoting phytochemicals, such as dose-response relations, for performance and/or reduction in the risk of chronic disease. However, several limitations relating to absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of many dietary bioactives still exist and must be better understood This Special Issue compiles recent discoveries that advance our understanding of how dietary bioactive, particularly from fruits and vegetables, influence long-term health maintenance and disease prevention

Polyphenol extraction optimisation from Ceylon gooseberry (Dovyalis hebecarpa) pulp

AbstractOriginally from Asia, Dovyalis hebecarpa is a dark purple/red exotic berry now also produced in Brazil. However, no reports were found in the literature about phenolic extraction or characterisation of this berry. In this study we evaluate the extraction optimisation of anthocyanins and total phenolics in D. hebecarpa berries aiming at the development of a simple and mild analytical technique. Multivariate analysis was used to optimise the extraction variables (ethanol:water:acetone solvent proportions, times, and acid concentrations) at different levels. Acetone/water (20/80 v/v) gave the highest anthocyanin extraction yield, but pure water and different proportions of acetone/water or acetone/ethanol/water (with >50% of water) were also effective. Neither acid concentration nor time had a significant effect on extraction efficiency allowing to fix the recommended parameters at the lowest values tested (0.35% formic acid v/v, and 17.6min). Under optimised conditions, extraction efficiencies were increased by 31.5% and 11% for anthocyanin and total phenolics, respectively as compared to traditional methods that use more solvent and time. Thus, the optimised methodology increased yields being less hazardous and time consuming than traditional methods. Finally, freeze-dried D. hebecarpa showed high content of target phytochemicals (319mg/100g and 1421mg/100g of total anthocyanin and total phenolic content, respectively)

Phytochemicals in fruits of Hawaiian wild cranberry relatives

BACKGROUND: Cranberries (Vaccinium macrocarpon Ait.) contain high levels of phytochemicals such as proanthocyanidins (PACs). These polymeric condensations of flavan-3-ol monomers are associated with health benefits. Our objective was to evaluate phytochemicals in fruit from Hawaiian cranberry relatives, V. reticulatum Sm. and V. calycinum Sm. Normal-phase HPLC coupled with fluorescence and ESI-MS detected PACs; the colorimetric 4-dimethylaminocinnamaldehyde (DMAC) assay was used to determine total PACs. Spectrophotometric tests and reverse-phase HPLC coupled to photodiode array and refractive index detectors evaluated phenolics, sugars, and organic acids. Antioxidant capacity was determined by the ORAC and FRAP assays. RESULTS: Antioxidant capacities of Hawaiian berries were high. The FRAP measurement for V. calycinum was 454.7 ± 90.2 μmol L⁻¹ Trolox equivalents kg⁻¹ for pressed fruit. Hawaiian berries had lower peonidin, quinic and citric acids amounts and invert (∼1) glucose/fructose ratio compared with cranberry. Both Hawaiian Vaccinium species were good sources of PACs; they contained phenolics and PAC monomers, A and B-type trimers, tetramers and larger polymers. Vaccinium reticulatum and V. calycinum showed comparable or higher PAC levels than in cranberry. Cranberries had higher percentage of A-type dimers than did V. reticulatum. A and B-type dimers were not differentiated in V. calycinum. The total PACs (as measured by DMAC) for V. calycinum (24.3 ± 0.10 mg catechin equivalents kg⁻¹) were about twice that in cranberry. CONCLUSION: Berries of V. reticulatum and V. calycinum could serve as a rich dietary source of PACs, comparable to or greater than cranberries. These finding suggest that Hawaiian Vaccinium berries could be a functional food. Additional examination of the phytochemicals in other wild Vaccinium species is warranted.Keywords: Phenolics, Proanthocyanidin, A-type linkage, Vaccinium reticulatum, Vaccinium calycinum, Anthocyanins, ‘ōhelo, Vaccinium macrocarpon, PAC, ORAC, FRA

Surgical and survival outcomes with perioperative or neoadjuvant immune-checkpoint inhibitors combined with platinum-based chemotherapy in resectable NSCLC: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials

: The use of neoadjuvant or perioperative anti-PD(L)1 was recently tested in multiple clinical trials. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised trials comparing neoadjuvant or perioperative chemoimmunotherapy to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in resectable NSCLC. Nine reports from 6 studies were included. Receipt of surgery was more frequent in the experimental arm (odds ratio, OR 1.39) as was pCR (OR 7.60). EFS was improved in the experimental arm (hazard ratio, HR 0.55) regardless of stage, histology, PD-L1 expression (PD-L1 negative, HR 0.74) and smoking exposure (never smokers, HR 0.67), as was OS (HR 0.67). Grade > = 3 treatment-related adverse events were more frequent in the experimental arm (OR 1.22). The experimental treatment improved surgical outcomes, pCR rates, EFS and OS in stage II-IIIB, EGFR/ALK negative resectable NSCLC; confirmatory evidence is warranted for stage IIIB tumours and with higher maturity of the OS endpoint

Search for lepton-flavor violation at HERA

A search for lepton-flavor-violating interactions $e p \to \mu X$ and $e p\to \tau X$ has been performed with the ZEUS detector using the entire HERA I data sample, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 130 pb^{-1}. The data were taken at center-of-mass energies, $\sqrt{s}$, of 300 and 318 GeV. No evidence of lepton-flavor violation was found, and constraints were derived on leptoquarks (LQs) that could mediate such interactions. For LQ masses below $\sqrt{s}$, limits were set on $\lambda_{eq_1} \sqrt{\beta_{\ell q}}$, where $\lambda_{eq_1}$ is the coupling of the LQ to an electron and a first-generation quark $q_1$, and $\beta_{\ell q}$ is the branching ratio of the LQ to the final-state lepton $\ell$ ($\mu$ or $\tau$) and a quark $q$. For LQ masses much larger than $\sqrt{s}$, limits were set on the four-fermion interaction term $\lambda_{e q_\alpha} \lambda_{\ell q_\beta} / M_{\mathrm{LQ}}^2$ for LQs that couple to an electron and a quark $q_\alpha$ and to a lepton $\ell$ and a quark $q_\beta$, where $\alpha$ and $\beta$ are quark generation indices. Some of the limits are also applicable to lepton-flavor-violating processes mediated by squarks in $R$-Parity-violating supersymmetric models. In some cases, especially when a higher-generation quark is involved and for the process $e p\to \tau X$, the ZEUS limits are the most stringent to date.Comment: 37 pages, 10 figures, Accepted by EPJC. References and 1 figure (Fig. 6) adde

Multijet production in neutral current deep inelastic scattering at HERA and determination of alpha_s

Multijet production rates in neutral current deep inelastic scattering have been measured in the range of exchanged boson virtualities 10 < Q2 < 5000 GeV2. The data were taken at the ep collider HERA with centre-of-mass energy sqrt(s) = 318 GeV using the ZEUS detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 82.2 pb-1. Jets were identified in the Breit frame using the k_T cluster algorithm in the longitudinally invariant inclusive mode. Measurements of differential dijet and trijet cross sections are presented as functions of jet transverse energy E_{T,B}{jet}, pseudorapidity eta_{LAB}{jet} and Q2 with E_{T,B}{jet} > 5 GeV and -1 < eta_{LAB}{jet} < 2.5. Next-to-leading-order QCD calculations describe the data well. The value of the strong coupling constant alpha_s(M_Z), determined from the ratio of the trijet to dijet cross sections, is alpha_s(M_Z) = 0.1179 pm 0.0013(stat.) {+0.0028}_{-0.0046}(exp.) {+0.0064}_{-0.0046}(th.)Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure

Dissociation of virtual photons in events with a leading proton at HERA

The ZEUS detector has been used to study dissociation of virtual photons in events with a leading proton, gamma^* p -> X p, in e^+p collisions at HERA. The data cover photon virtualities in two ranges, 0.03<Q^2<0.60 GeV^2 and 2<Q^2<100 GeV^2, with M_X>1.5 GeV, where M_X is the mass of the hadronic final state, X. Events were required to have a leading proton, detected in the ZEUS leading proton spectrometer, carrying at least 90% of the incoming proton energy. The cross section is presented as a function of t, the squared four-momentum transfer at the proton vertex, Phi, the azimuthal angle between the positron scattering plane and the proton scattering plane, and Q^2. The data are presented in terms of the diffractive structure function, F_2^D(3). A next-to-leading-order QCD fit to the higher-Q^2 data set and to previously published diffractive charm production data is presented

Inclusive jet cross sections and dijet correlations in D∗±D^{*\pm} photoproduction at HERA

Inclusive jet cross sections in photoproduction for events containing a $D^*$ meson have been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of $78.6 {\rm pb}^{-1}$. The events were required to have a virtuality of the incoming photon, $Q^2$, of less than 1 GeV$^2$, and a photon-proton centre-of-mass energy in the range $130<W_{\gamma p}<280 {\rm GeV}$. The measurements are compared with next-to-leading-order (NLO) QCD calculations. Good agreement is found with the NLO calculations over most of the measured kinematic region. Requiring a second jet in the event allowed a more detailed comparison with QCD calculations. The measured dijet cross sections are also compared to Monte Carlo (MC) models which incorporate leading-order matrix elements followed by parton showers and hadronisation. The NLO QCD predictions are in general agreement with the data although differences have been isolated to regions where contributions from higher orders are expected to be significant. The MC models give a better description than the NLO predictions of the shape of the measured cross sections.Comment: 43 pages, 12 figures, charm jets ZEU