Meléndez-Martínez Antonio J, Vicario Isabel M, Heredia Francisco J
Laboratorio de Color y Calidad de Alimentos, Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad de Sevilla, 41012 Sevilla, España.
Arch Latinoam Nutr. 2007 Jun;57(2):109-17.
Carotenoid are ubiquitous compounds serving a series of functions that make them special. Thus, they are regarded as essential compounds for life mainly due to the different roles they perform in photosynthesis as we currently know it. For many years, the nutritional relevance ot carotenoids was due to some of them exhibiting vitamin A activity, although the interest in these pigments has expanded dramatically in the last years owing to a large variety of surveys that seem to indicate that they are antioxidant and may be beneficial for the prevention of several chronic non-transmissible human diseases, albeit there is some controversy in this regard. In any case, it is clear that the different functions and effects attributed to these isoprenoids stem from their physical and chemical properties, the latter being due to their chemical structure. Due to the diverse benefitial actions carotenoids are responsible for and, above all, to their nutritional importance, the main objective of this review is to describe such features, whose knowledge is indispensable to have a holistic view of the different roles they play and for the design of new studies.
类胡萝卜素是普遍存在的化合物，具有一系列使其独特的功能。因此，它们被视为生命必需的化合物，主要是因为在我们目前所了解的光合作用中它们发挥着不同的作用。多年来，类胡萝卜素的营养相关性在于其中一些具有维生素A活性，尽管近年来由于大量调查似乎表明它们具有抗氧化作用，可能对预防多种慢性非传染性人类疾病有益，尽管在这方面存在一些争议，但人们对这些色素的兴趣已大幅增加。无论如何，很明显，归因于这些类异戊二烯的不同功能和作用源于它们的物理和化学性质，而后者又归因于它们的化学结构。由于类胡萝卜素具有多种有益作用，最重要的是它们的营养重要性，本综述的主要目的是描述这些特征，了解这些特征对于全面了解它们所发挥的不同作用以及设计新的研究不可或缺。
