12 páginas, 2 figuras.-- et al.Numerous health benefits have been attributed to cocoa
and its derived products in the last decade including antioxidant,
anti-platelet and positive effects on lipid metabolism and vascular
function. Inflammation plays a key role in the initiation and
progression of atherosclerosis. However, cocoa feeding trials
focused on inflammation are still rare and the results yielded are
controversial. Health effects derived from cocoa consumption have been partly attributed to its polyphenol content, in particular of flavanols.
Bioavailability is a key issue for cocoa polyphenols in order to be able to exert their
biological activities. In the case of flavanols, bioavailability is strongly influenced by
several factors, such as their degree of polymerization and the food matrix in which the
polyphenols are delivered. Furthermore, gut has become an active site for the
metabolism of procyanidins (oligomeric and polymeric flavanols). Estimation of
polyphenol consumption or exposure is also a very challenging task in Food and
Nutrition Science in order to correlate the intake of phytochemicals with in vivo health
effects. In the area of nutrition, modern analytical techniques based on mass
spectrometry are leading to considerable advances in targeted metabolite analysis and
particularly in Metabolomics or global metabolite analysis.
In this chapter we have summarized the most relevant results of our recent research
on the bioavailability of cocoa polyphenols in humans and the effect of the matrix in
which cocoa polyphenols are delivered considering both targeted analysis and a
metabolomic approach. Furthermore, we have also summarized the effect of long-term
consumption of cocoa powder in patients at high risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD)
on the inflammatory biomarkers of atherosclerosis.This research was supported by national grants CICYT (AGL: 2004-
08378-C02-01/02, 2006-14228-C03-02/01 and 2009-13906-C02-01); CIBER
06/03 Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y la Nutrición is an initiative of the
Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spain; Centro Nacional de Investigaciones
Cardiovasculares (CNIC-06) and Ingenio-CONSOLIDER program, Fun-cfood
(CSD2007-063). M.U.-S. thanks the Sara Borrell postdoctoral program
(CD09/00134), M.M. thanks the Ramon y Cajal program, R.Ll. thanks the
Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria program (FIS, CD06/00161), and N.K.
thanks the FPU fellowship program, all from the Ministry of Science and
Innovation. M.R.-R. thanks the FI-DGR2010 fellowship program from the
Generalitat de Catalunya. R.E. is recipient of a grant from FIS, Madrid, Spain.Peer reviewe
