Abstract

Cereals have potential role in human health due to their high amounts of antioxidant compounds especially in insoluble bound forms. Bound antioxidants are crucial for living organisms as they exert their antioxidant effects much longer than soluble antioxidants. They reach the colon without being digested through the small intestine and contribute to the formation of reduced environment in the colon, while soluble antioxidants ingested with diet cause a rapid and short-term increase in plasma antioxidant capacity upon absorption in the small intestine. From this point of view, cereal dietary fiber-antioxidant compounds complexes have come into prominence in recent years and researches have focused on their health benefits, digestion behavior and bioavailability in gastrointestinal system and determination of their antioxidant capacity both in vivo and in vitro. This review aimed to collect important knowledge related to cereal antioxidant compounds and give a general perspective on their potential antioxidant effects.

INTRODUCTION

Researchers have emphasized that most of chronic diseases, in particular obesity, diabetes, some cancers, are linked with human diet (1-3). Therefore, dietary guidelines encourage people to consume more healthful foods and beverages leading to achieve and maintain a healthy weight, promote health, and prevent diet related diseases like obesity, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers and cardiovascular diseases (4-7). Moreover, consumption of the functional foods containing biologically active compounds increase as they provide health benefits and reduce the risk of mentioned diseases (8). Antioxidant compounds and dietary fibers have come into prominence due to their functional properties.
Antioxidants counteract the oxidative stress, which cause chronic and degenerative diseases, and prevent oxidation of oxidizable substrates in foods (9). Most common dietary antioxidant compounds in foods are vitamins (C and E), carotenoids, chlorophylls and a wide variety of phytochemicals such as phenolic compounds, flavonoids, and complex polyphenols (10-12). They may generally be found in free and bound forms in foods (13). According to most previou ...