BIOFLAVONOIDS

Flavonoids are one of the classes of plant polyphenols with a wide spectrum of biological action. According to one of the hypotheses, flavonoids perform in plants the role of protective agents under various stresses, participate in preventing the formation of unstable radicals under UV radiation and temperature stress. In the body of animals flavonoids are not formed and come with food, where flavonoids partially undergo a number of changes and are removed from the body in the form of various metabolites, mainly phenolic acids, and mostly unchanged. Several hypotheses based on their antioxidant and metal-binding capacity have been proposed in an attempt to explain such a wide range of flavonoid action. The explanation of the wide range of biological effects of flavonoids, as a result of high antioxidant activity of this class of compounds, to some extent explains the presence of flavonoids ability to reduce the risk of spontaneous tumors, their anti-inflammatory activity, reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease when eating foods rich in polyphenols.