The bioactive components as well as the nutritional and health effects of sea buckthorn

Abstract

Sea buckthorn (SB), also named sea berry, Hippophae rhamnoides L. or Elaeagnus rhamnoides L., has been used in daily life for centuries with kinds of purposes ranging from a beverage with a pleasant taste and flavor, to an agent for treatment of many disorders and diseases. SB is well known more than just a fruit. So far, a unique mixture of bioactive components was elucidated in SB including flavonoids, phenolic acids, proanthocyanidins, carotenoids, fatty acids, triterpenoids, vitamins and phytosterols, which implied the great medicinal worth of this seaberry. Both in vitro and in vivo experiments, ranged from cell lines to animals as well as a few in patients and healthy volunteers, indicated that SB possessed various biological activities including anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects, antioxidant properties, anti-cancer activities, hepato-protection, cardiovascular-protection, neuroprotection, radioprotection, skin protection effect as well as the protective effect against some eye and gastrointestinal sickness. Furthermore, the toxicological results revealed neither the fruits, nor the seeds of SB were toxic. The present review summarizes the unique profile of the chemical compounds, the nutritional and health effects as well as the toxicological properties of SB, which lay the foundation for practical applications of SB in treatment of human diseases.

Fig. 1. The main active components in SB.

Fig. 2. The main pharmacological activities of SB.

Fig. 3. Structures of flavonoids, phenolic acids and triterpenoids identified in SB (the structures of compound no. 42–47 can not be supplied due to unclear connection location).

Fig. 4. (A) The contents of total flavonol glycosides, oil, tocopherols, tocotrienols and vitamin C in different parts and subspecies of SB. (B) The oil contents in the whole fruits and seeds in three different subspecies of SB. (C) The total contents of tocopherols and tocotrienols in seeds, soft parts and the whole fruits in different subspecies of SB. (D) Vitamin C contents in juice of SB fruits in different subspecies. FG, flavonol glycosides; gly, glycoside; Is, isorhamnetin; Qu, quercetin; agly, aglycones.

Fig. 5. The polysaccharide extract of SB (HRP) protected against lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced inflammatory related damage via inhibiting toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)-NF-κB signaling pathway. (A) HRP decreased TLR4 and myeloid differentiation factor 88 (MyD88) levels; (B) HRP inhibited the phosphorylation of ikappa B kinase (IKK), inhibitor of κB (IκB) as well as the activation and translocation of NF-κB.

Fig. 6. SB showed antioxidant activity against various oxidative damage caused by various inducers.

Fig. 7. SB showed protection effect against various damage of body system and diseases, which based on antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. The green font indicated the biological activity of SB was due to its anti-inflammatory activity; and the yellow font was due to its antioxidant activity; whereas the black font was due to both the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities.