The Odyssey of Bioactive Compounds in Avocado (Persea americana) and Their Health Benefits

Deep Jyoti Bhuyan; Muhammad A Alsherbiny; Saumya Perera; Mitchell Low; Amrita Basu; Okram Abemsana Devi; Mridula Saikia Barooah; Chun Guang Li; Konstantinos Papoutsis

doi:10.3390/antiox8100426

The Odyssey of Bioactive Compounds in Avocado (Persea americana) and Their Health Benefits

Antioxidants (Basel). 2019 Sep 24;8(10):426. doi: 10.3390/antiox8100426.

Authors

Deep Jyoti Bhuyan¹, Muhammad A Alsherbiny^{2

3}, Saumya Perera⁴, Mitchell Low⁵, Amrita Basu⁶, Okram Abemsana Devi⁷, Mridula Saikia Barooah⁸, Chun Guang Li⁹, Konstantinos Papoutsis¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ NICM Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia. d.bhuyan@westernsydney.edu.au.
² NICM Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia. m.alsherbiny@westernsydney.edu.au.
³ Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University, Cairo 11562, Egypt. m.alsherbiny@westernsydney.edu.au.
⁴ NICM Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia. Saumya.P@westernsydney.edu.au.
⁵ NICM Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia. Mitchell.Low@westernsydney.edu.au.
⁶ Research Centre for Toxic Compounds in the Environment, Masaryk University, Brno 62500, Czech. amrita@recetox.muni.cz.
⁷ Department of Food Science and Nutrition, College of Community Science, Assam Agricultural University, Assam 785013, India. okramabemsana@gmail.com.
⁸ Department of Food Science and Nutrition, College of Community Science, Assam Agricultural University, Assam 785013, India. mridulabarooah@aau.ac.in.
⁹ NICM Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia. C.Li@westernsydney.edu.au.
¹⁰ School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland. kostas.papoutsis@ucd.ie.

Abstract

Persea americana, commonly known as avocado, has recently gained substantial popularity and is often marketed as a "superfood" because of its unique nutritional composition, antioxidant content, and biochemical profile. However, the term "superfood" can be vague and misleading, as it is often associated with unrealistic health claims. This review draws a comprehensive summary and assessment of research performed in the last few decades to understand the nutritional and therapeutic properties of avocado and its bioactive compounds. In particular, studies reporting the major metabolites of avocado, their antioxidant as well as bioavailability and pharmacokinetic properties, are summarized and assessed. Furthermore, the potential of avocado in novel drug discovery for the prevention and treatment of cancer, microbial, inflammatory, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases is highlighted. This review also proposes several interesting future directions for avocado research.

Keywords: Persea americana; anti-inflammatory; anticancer; antimicrobial; antioxidants; avocado; bioavailability and pharmacokinetic; cardiovascular diseases (CVD); diabetes; metabolites.

Publication types

Review