The potential impact of strawberry on human health.

The strawberry (Fragaria X ananassa, Duch.) represents a relevant source of micronutrients, such as minerals, vitamin C, folate and phenolic substances, most of which are natural antioxidants and contribute to the high nutritional quality of the fruit. All these compounds are essential for health and, in particular, strawberry phenolics are best known for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory action, and possess directly and indirectly antimicrobial, anti-allergy and anti-hypertensive properties, as well as the capacity to inhibit the activities of some physiological enzymes and receptor properties. The main objective of this article is to review and update the current knowledge on the potential impact of the strawberry on human health, with particular attention on compounds and their possible mechanisms of action.

Structural damage induced by peroxidation may account for functional impairment of heavy synaptic mitochondria.

Coenzyme Q distribution, as well as respiratory chain features, in rat brain mitochondria depend on mitochondrial subpopulation, brain region and age. Heavy mitochondria (HM) usually display the lowest content of respiratory components and the lowest enzymatic activities and it has been suggested that they represent the oldest mitochondrial population. In this study, we confirmed that HM are considerably compromised in their structure. In fact, HM showed to have the highest hydroperoxide content and the most consistent modifications in their fatty acid pattern with wide loss of fatty acids (or part of them) in the phospholipid moiety. Such situation could explain the typical impairment of HM and could support the hypothesis that they represent an old mitochondrial population.