Flavonoids health benefits and their molecular mechanism.

Flavonoids are a group of polyphenolic compounds, diverse in chemical structure and characteristics, found ubiquitously in plants. Until now, more than 9000 different flavonoid compounds were described in plants, where they play important biological roles by affecting several developmental processes. There has been increasing interest in the research of flavonoids from dietary sources, due to growing evidence of the versatile health benefits of flavonoids including anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antiproliferative and anticancer activity, freeradical scavenging capacity, antihypertensive effects, coronary heart disease prevention and anti-human immunodeficiency virus functions. This paper reviews the current advances in flavonoids in food with emphasis on mechanism aspects on the basis of the published literature, which may provide some guidance for researchers in further investigations and for industries in developing practical health agents.