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Seigler DS, Friesen JB, Bisson J, et al. Do Certain Flavonoid IMPS Have a Vital Function?. Front Nutr. 2021;8:762753doi: 10.3389/fnut.2021.762753.
Seigler, D. S., Friesen, J. B., Bisson, J., Graham, J. G., Bedran-Russo, A., McAlpine, J. B., & Pauli, G. F. (2021). Do Certain Flavonoid IMPS Have a Vital Function?. Frontiers in nutrition, 8762753. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2021.762753
Seigler, David S, et al. "Do Certain Flavonoid IMPS Have a Vital Function?." Frontiers in nutrition vol. 8 (2021): 762753. doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2021.762753
Seigler DS, Friesen JB, Bisson J, Graham JG, Bedran-Russo A, McAlpine JB, Pauli GF. Do Certain Flavonoid IMPS Have a Vital Function?. Front Nutr. 2021 Dec 01;8:762753. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2021.762753. eCollection 2021. PMID: 34926546; PMCID: PMC8672243.
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Front Nutr. 2021 Dec 01;8:762753. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2021.762753. eCollection 2021.

Do Certain Flavonoid IMPS Have a Vital Function?.

Frontiers in nutrition

David S Seigler, J Brent Friesen, Jonathan Bisson, James G Graham, Ana Bedran-Russo, James B McAlpine, Guido F Pauli

Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Champaign, IL, United States.
  2. Center for Natural Products Technologies, College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States.
  3. Pharmacognosy Institute, College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States.
  4. Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States.
  5. Physical Sciences Department, Dominican University, River Forest, IL, United States.
  6. Department of Restorative Dentistry, College of Dentistry, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States.

PMID: 34926546 PMCID: PMC8672243 DOI: 10.3389/fnut.2021.762753

Abstract

Flavonoids are a vast group of metabolites that are essential for vascular plant physiology and, thus, occur ubiquitously in plant-based/-derived foods. The solitary designation of thousands of known flavonoids hides the fact that their metabolomes are structurally highly diverse, consist of disparate subgroups, yet undergo a certain degree of metabolic interconversion. Unsurprisingly, flavonoids have been an important theme in nutrition research. Already in the 1930s, it was discovered that the ability of synthetic Vitamin C to treat scurvy was inferior to that of plant extracts containing Vitamin C. Subsequent experimental evidence led to the proposal of Vitamin P (permeability) as an essential phytochemical nutrient. However, attempts to isolate and characterize Vitamin P gave confusing and sometimes irreproducible results, which today can be interpreted as rooted in the unrecognized (residual) complexity of the intervention materials. Over the years, primarily flavonoids (and some coumarins) were known as having Vitamin P-like activity. More recently, in a NAPRALERT meta-analysis, essentially all of these Vitamin P candidates were identified as IMPs (Invalid/Improbable/Interfering Metabolic Panaceas). While the historic inability to define a single compound and specific mode of action led to general skepticism about the Vitamin P proposition for "bioflavonoids," the more logical conclusion is that several abundant and metabolically labile plant constituents fill this essential role in human nutrition at the interface of vitamins, cofactors, and micronutrients. Reviewing 100+ years of the multilingual Vitamin P and C literature provides the rationales for this conclusion and new perspectives for future research.

Copyright © 2021 Seigler, Friesen, Bisson, Graham, Bedran-Russo, McAlpine and Pauli.

Keywords: Vitamin C; Vitamin P; cofactors; flavonoids; invalid metabolic panaceas (IMPS); micronutrients; vitamins

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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