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Biological Activity of Conventional and Organic Pomegranate Juices: Antioxidant and Antimutagenic Potential

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Abstract

None of the health claims about pomegranate juices has been approved yet by European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). There is a general perception among consumers that organic foods are healthier, tastier, and more nutritive than the conventional products. The aim of this research was to study the differences in the biological activity between ready-for-consumption juices obtained from pomegranates fruits grown under conventional and organic agricultural practices. Antioxidant activity has been evaluated by three methods (DPPH•, ABTS+, and FRAP), together with the total contents of phenolics and punicalagin (HPLC-DAD); besides, the Ames test was used to evaluate the antimutagenic potential of the juices. Pomegranate juice, either from conventionally or organically grown fruits, was antimutagenic (mean of 51 and 90 % for Salmonella typhimurium TA100 and TA98, respectively) and it was capable of protecting DNA from both, base-pair or frame-shift type of mutations. In fact, the antimutagenicity of conventional pomegranate juice was higher than that achieved by the organic sample; this finding was linked to a higher punicalagin content (201 and 104 mg L−1 for conventional and organic juices, respectively).

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Acknowledgments

Author AACB was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, through fellowship PRX15/00352.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento Tecnología Agroalimentaria, Grupo “Calidad y Seguridad Alimentaria (CSA), Escuela Politécnica Superior de Orihuela (EPSO), Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche (UMH), Carretera de Beniel, km 3.2, 03312-Orihuela, Alicante, Spain

    M. Cano-Lamadrid & A. A. Carbonell-Barrachina

  2. Department of Agrochemistry and Biochemistry, University of Alicante, PO Box 99, 03080, Alicante, Spain

    F. C. Marhuenda-Egea

  3. Departamento Producción Vegetal y Microbiología, UMH, EPSO, Carretera de Beniel, km 3.2, 03312-Orihuela, Alicante, Spain

    F. Hernández

  4. Departamento de Investigación y Posgrado en Alimentos, Universidad de Sonora, Apartado Postal 1658, C.P, 83000, Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico

    E. C. Rosas-Burgos & A. Burgos-Hernández

Authors
  1. M. Cano-Lamadrid
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  2. F. C. Marhuenda-Egea
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  3. F. Hernández
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  4. E. C. Rosas-Burgos
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  5. A. Burgos-Hernández
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  6. A. A. Carbonell-Barrachina
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. Burgos-Hernández.

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Cano-Lamadrid, M., Marhuenda-Egea, F.C., Hernández, F. et al. Biological Activity of Conventional and Organic Pomegranate Juices: Antioxidant and Antimutagenic Potential. Plant Foods Hum Nutr 71, 375–380 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11130-016-0569-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11130-016-0569-y

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