Seabuckthorn Polyphenols and Human Health: Research Highlights and Future Scopes

Abstract

Nutraceutical-rich functional foods have gained popularity in recent years as means of improving human health. Nearly 200 distinct kinds of nutritional and bioactive substances, such as phytosterols, polyunsaturated fatty acids, carotenoids, sugar alcohols, superoxide dismutase, and polyphenols, are found in seabuckthorn berries. A few seabuckthorn-based functional food products have been developed and clinically tested. Additionally, the author’s lab has created two fruit-based, probiotic-fortified functional beverages (apple and seabuckthorn) that effectively guard against intestinal inflammation, particularly inflammatory bowel disease as tested in animal models. The author’s team has also created a unique seabuckthorn wine by co-fermenting seabuckthorn with Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Issatchenkia orientalis, which was tested for hypercholesterolaemia effects in mice. Future applications require cutting-edge technologies to develop seabuckthorn-based formulations with enhanced functional properties. Innovations such as the use of non-thermal procedures like high pressure processing can help preserve the maximum content of phytonutrients and nutraceuticals in seabuckthorn-based ready-to-serve products. Furthermore, lack of sufficient in vivo models to definitively demonstrate that seabuckthorn preparations enhance hemostasis and cardiovascular or cancer diseases is another bottleneck that needs to be addressed. Little is known about how seabuckthorn preparations—especially commercial ones—affect human hemostasis, cardiovascular diseases, and other metabolic disorders in the scientific literature. Neither the prophylactic nor therapeutic dosages of seabuckthorn preparations are known at this time, nor are there any particular guidelines for their administration. In future, more large-scale, randomized clinical trials are required, particularly with both healthy and patient subjects.