Title: Astaxanthin impact on brain: health potential and market perspective
Abstract: AbstractAbstractNowadays, there is an emergent interest in new trend-driven biomolecules to improve health and wellbeing, which has become an interesting and promising field, considering their high value and biological potential. Astaxanthin is one of these promising biomolecules, with impressive high market growth, especially in the pharmaceutical and food industries. This biomolecule, obtained from natural sources (i.e., microalgae), has been reported in the literature to have several beneficial health effects due to its biological properties. These benefits seem to be mainly associated with Astaxanthin's high antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, which may act on several brain issues, thus attenuating symptoms. In this sense, several studies have demonstrated the impact of astaxanthin on a wide range of diseases, namely on brain disorders (such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson, depression, brain stroke and autism). Therefore, this review highlights its application in mental health and illness. Furthermore, a S.W.O.T. analysis was performed to display an approach from the market/commercial perspective. However, to bring the molecule to the market, there is still a need for more studies to increase deep knowledge regarding the real impact and mechanisms in the human brain.HIGHLIGHTSAstaxanthin has been mainly extracted from the algae Haematococcus pluvialisAstaxanthin, bioactive molecule with high antioxidant and anti-inflammatory propertiesAstaxanthin has an important protective effect on brain disordersAstaxanthin is highly marketable, mainly for food and pharmaceutical industriesKeywords: Algaeastaxanthinbiomoleculesbrain diseaseshealth benefits AcknowledgmentsThe authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of Fundação para a ciência e a tecnologia for the CBQF funding under the FCT project UIDB/50016/2020; and the individual FCT PhD research grant (ref. SFRH/BD/144155/2019) for the author Sara A. Cunha. This work was supported by the Universidade Católica Portuguesa - Porto in the framework of the Interdisciplinary Project "B4Brain - Bioproduto com potencial preventivo e terapêutico para doenças neurodegenerativas".Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Author contributionsSara Cunha and Patrícia Batista designed the manuscript. Sara Cunha, Sara Baptista-Silva performed the part of pharmacological experiments, analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript. Sandra Borges and Tânia Ribeiro designed and performed the part of chemical experiments, and analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript. Patrícia Batista, Manuela Pintado, and Patrícia Oliveira-Silva supervised the project, and review the manuscript. All the authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.Additional informationFundingThe present publication was supported by CEDH, through the CEECINST/00137/2018 and Project UIDB/04872/2020 of Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal.Correction StatementThis article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Publication Year: 2023
Publication Date: 2023-07-07
Language: en
Type: review
Indexed In: ['crossref', 'pubmed']
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Cited By Count: 9
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