Antioxidant mechanisms of polyphenols in the storage and preservation of marine foods: a comprehensive review.

Marine foods deteriorate during frozen storage, driven by protein and lipid oxidation and manifesting as colour browning, texture softening, and flavour loss. Polyphenols, multi-target natural antioxidants, offer considerable potential for preservation. The review summarises deterioration patterns, emphasising oxidation mechanisms, evaluates current preservation technologies, and examines advances in polyphenol application. Polyphenols act via radical scavenging, metal chelation, enzyme modulation, and target protein protection, and exert synergistic effects when combined with packaging or physical methods. However, polyphenol application remains constrained by inadequate stability, fragmented data, and unclear structure-activity relationships. Future priorities include stabilised polyphenol release via encapsulation or grafting, AI-driven construction of standardised datasets, and machine learning-based elucidation of preservation patterns to enable intelligent prediction and targeted formulation optimisation.