Formation of aqueous and alcoholic adducts of curcumin during its extraction

Recent advancements in chitosan-based intelligent food freshness indicators: Categorization, advantages, and applications

With an increasing emphasis on food safety and public health, there is an ongoing effort to develop reliable, non-invasive methods to assess the freshness of diverse food products. Chitosan-based food freshness indicators, leveraging properties such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, non-toxicity, and high stability, offer an innovative approach for real-time monitoring of food quality during storage and transportation. This review introduces intelligent food freshness indicators, specifically those utilizing pH-sensitive dyes like anthocyanins, curcumin, alizarin, shikonin, and betacyanin. It highlights the benefits of chitosan-based intelligent food freshness indicators, emphasizing improvements in barrier and mechanical properties, antibacterial activity, and composite film solubility. The application of these indicators in the food industry is then explored, alongside a concise overview of chitosan's limitations. The paper concludes by discussing the challenges and potential areas for future research in the development of intelligent food freshness indicators using chitosan. Thus, chitosan-based smart food preservation indicators represent an innovative approach to providing real-time data for monitoring food quality, offering valuable insights to both customers and retailers, and playing a pivotal role in advancing the food industry.

New Insights into Vitamin K-From Its Natural Sources through Biological Properties and Chemical Methods of Quantitative Determination

Vitamin K is one of the many health-promoting substances whose impact on the human body has been underestimated until recently. However, recently published research results have changed this situation, prompting some researchers to consider it a new panacea for diseases of old age. The result is a significant increase in interest in the accurate analysis of vitamin K in various types of samples, ranging from food, through dietary supplements, to biological matrices and clinical trials, both observational and interventional. This review summarizes the current state of knowledge about the proven and speculated biological activity of vitamin K and its importance for the world's aging societies, including the methods used for its isolation and analysis in various matrices types. Of all the analytical methods, the currently preferred methods of choice for the direct analysis of vitamin K are chromatographic methods, in particular liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. This technique, despite its sensitivity and selectivity, requires an appropriate stage of sample preparation. As there is still room for improvement in the efficiency of these methods, especially at the sample preparation stage, this review shows the directions that need to be taken to make these methods faster, more efficient and more environmentally friendly.

Starch isolation from turmeric dye extraction residue and its application in active film production

In this study, we have isolated starch from turmeric dye extraction residue by steeping in acid medium (AS), steeping in water (WS), or steeping in alkaline medium (KS) and assessed the filmogenic capacity of the resulting starches. We have also characterized the chemical composition, morphology, swelling power, solubility, crystallinity, and active properties of the AS, WS, and KS starches and investigated the mechanical, functional, antioxidant, and antimicrobial properties of the corresponding films. The AS and KS starches showed lower apparent amylose content and higher purity, relative crystallinity, swelling power, and solubility than the WS starch. All the starches retained phenolic compounds and curcuminoids; their phenolic and curcuminoid contents were higher than the contents in the residue, especially in the case of the AS starch, which yielded films with the best antioxidant and antimicrobial activities. The AS and KS starches yielded films that were more resistant at break, less soluble in water, and less hydrophilic than the film obtained from the WS starch. Thus, submitting turmeric dye extraction residue to AS in ascorbic acid yielded a starch that resulted in films with good mechanical properties and better antioxidant and antimicrobial properties, to ensure safe and prolonged food shelf life.

Changes in curcuminoids and chemical components of turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) under freeze-drying and low-temperature drying methods

We investigated how various drying methods affect the chemical components and microstructure of turmeric. We used freeze drying (FD), hot-air drying (HD) at 50 °C and sun drying (SD). Compared to all dried samples, fresh turmeric had greater amounts of chemical components (curcuminoids, phenolic acids, flavonoids and amino acids) andgreater antioxidantactivity (DPPH and FRAP) except for ABTS^.+ values. SD caused a severe decline of three major curcuminoids, resulting from UV and light degradation. Curcumin was decreased the most by SD (72%), followed by HD (61%) and FD (55%), respectively. Curcumin degradation to ferulic acid and vanillin was explored by FTIR analysis. The amino acids were decreased by all drying methods. FD was considered to be most suitable for drying turmeric. Microstructure changes were least after freeze drying, but were still evident compared with fresh turmeric.

Recent advances in encapsulation of curcumin in nanoemulsions: A review of encapsulation technologies, bioaccessibility and applications

Curcumin is widely acknowledged for its beneficial activities. However, its application has remained challenging due to its low aqueous solubility, biochemical/structural degradation and poor bioavailability. For these reasons, many researches are aimed at overcoming these limitations using lipid-based nanosystems to encapsulate curcumin, especially nanoemulsions. This review highlights the theoretical aspects and recent advances of preparation technologies (phase inversion temperature, phase inversion composition, ultrasonication, high pressure homogenization and microfluidization) for encapsulation of curcumin in nanoemulsions. Additionally, the specific factors in designing nanoemulsions systems that affect the chemical stability and in vitro bioaccessibility of the encapsulated curcumin are discussed. Also, the importance of nanoemulsions in improving antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anticancer activities of curcumin is underlined. Curcumin-loaded nanoemulsions preparation technologies have been proposed to provide efficient, systematic, and practical protocols for improved applications of curcumin. Additionally, key factors that influence curcumin delivery include the nature of emulsifier, the type and the amount of carrier oil and emulsifier-curcumin interactions. The pharmacological activities of curcumin including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anticancer activities can be improved by nanoemulsions.

Natural Compounds as a Strategy to Optimize "In Vitro" Expansion of Stem Cells

The efficient use of stem cells for transplantation is often limited by the relatively low number of stem cells collected. The ex vivo expansion of human stem cells for clinical use is a potentially valuable approach to increase stem cell number. Currently, most of the procedures used to expand stem cells are carried out using a 21% oxygen concentration, which is about 4- to 10-fold greater than the concentration characteristic of their natural niches. Hyperoxia might cause oxidative stress with a deleterious effect on the physiology of cultured stem cells. In this review, we investigate and critically examine the available information on the ability of natural compounds to counteract hyperoxia-induced damage in different types of stem cells ex vivo. In particular, we focused on proliferation and stemness maintenance in an attempt to draw up useful indications to define new culture media with a promoting activity on cell expansion in vitro.