Platelet activity and platelet-endothelial cell interactions are important in the acute development of thrombosis, as well as in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease. An increasing number of foods have been reported to have platelet-inhibitory actions, and research with a number of flavanol-rich foods, including, grape juice, cocoa and chocolate, suggests that these foods may provide some...

Am. J. Enol. Vitic. 56:3 (2005) 197 Phenolic compounds are important to red wine quality because they impact color, mouthfeel, and ageability. Although phenolics are present in grape juice, the amount is greatly increased in wine because of their greater solubility in ethanol than in purely aqueous solutions. Typical levels of the major grape phenolics present in red wine are shown in Table 1. ...

Cocoa products and chocolate have recently been recognized as a rich source of flavonoids, mainly flavanols, potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agents with established benefits for cardiovascular health but largely unproven effects on neurocognition and behavior. In this review, we focus on neuromodulatory and neuroprotective actions of cocoa flavanols in humans. The absorbed flavonoids p...

Evidence suggesting that dietary polyphenols, flavanols, and proanthocyanidins in particular offer significant cardiovascular health benefits is rapidly increasing. Accordingly, reliable and accurate methods are needed to provide qualitative and quantitative food composition data necessary for high quality epidemiological and clinical research. Measurements for flavonoids and proanthocyanidins ...

Dietary administration of cocoa flavanols may be an effective complementary strategy for alleviation or prevention of metabolic syndrome, particularly glucose intolerance. The complex flavanol composition of cocoa provides the ability to interact with a variety of molecules, thus allowing numerous opportunities to ameliorate metabolic diseases. These interactions likely occur primarily in the g...

Flavanols are a class of polyphenols that have become the focus much research because their medicinal properties. For this paper, new method to determine in nutraceutical samples was developed, based on solid-liquid extraction and further analysis by liquid chromatography. Analytes were recovered ultrasound-assisted extraction, using mixture methanol/water/hydrochloric acid (70:29:1, v:v:v) as ...

abstract chocolate is derived from cocoa beans - the fruit of the cacao tree or theobroma cacao (the latin term: food of the gods). recent published articles demonstrate that the quality and quantity of the antioxidants in cocoa and chocolate are very high and their flavonoids are believed to reduce the number of free radicals in the body that contribute to medical problems, such as cardiovascu...

The quantitative parameters and method performance for a normal-phase HPLC separation of flavanols and procyanidins in chocolate and cocoa-containing food products were optimized and assessed. Single laboratory method performance was examined over three months using three separate secondary standards. RSD(r) ranged from 1.9%, 4.5% to 9.0% for cocoa powder, liquor and chocolate samples containin...