Pycnogenol antioxidant activity

Grape seed extract, which is another widely used plant extract similar to pycnogenol, contains procyanidins, which have a strong antioxidant activity. 

Packer, L., Rimbach, G., and Virgili, F. Antioxidant activity and biologic properties of a procyanidin-rich extract from pine (Pinus martima) bark, pycnogenol, Free Radic. Biol. Med., 27, 704—724, 1999. 

Pycnogenol has been reported to have a strong antioxidant activity either in vitro utilizing cultured cells or in vivo in experimental animals and in humans, and to participate to the cellular antioxidant network. Further beneficial effects such as vasorelaxation, immunomodulatory function, and anti-iirflammatory activities have been reported, coirfimting the potential of this extract as an effective phytochemical. 

Pycnogenol has also recently been reported to be absorbed percutaneously by humans and may therefore exert its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity from this route, protecting the skin from ultraviolet (UV)-radiation-induced damage. ... 

The most obvious feature of Pycnogenol, owing to the basic chemical structure of its components, is its strong antioxidant activity. Phenolic acids, polyphenols, and in particular flavonoids are composed of one (or more) aromatic rings bearing one or more hydroxyl groups and are therefore potentially able to quench free radicals by forming resonance-stabilized phenoxyl radicals. " The ability to quench the reactivity of... 

Details about structure, biosynthesis, and classification of phenolics are described in the other chapters in this handbook. Plant phenolics have a distinctive ability to form non-covalent, intermolecular complexes with each other and with both large and small molecules. Recognition of the antioxidant activities of many polyphenols has established correlation with the health benefits by such compounds [34]. This leads to the development of commercial products containing free-radical-scavenging phytochemical mixtures, for example, Pycnogenol (procyanidin extracted from Pinus maritima). Table 82.2 represents a list of polyphenolic compounds used in nutraceuticals and their biologic effects on human health. 

Recently, some reports have led to the hypothesis that Pycnogenol could be beneficial in not only mitigating the adverse effects of anticancer chemotherapy," but possibly also inhibiting the development, growth, and progression of cancer. This activity is associated not only with the strong antioxidant capacity of the polyphenols contained in Pycnogenol, but also with its ability to modulate cell response to different stimuli. 

Various studies have addressed the antioxidant capacity of Pycnogenol in simplified assay systems in vitro, cultured cell models, perfused organs, and in vivo. Blazso and coworkers tested the in vitro scavenging activity of Pycnogenol as well as three... 

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