**2. Research methods**

#### **2.1. Study design**

Study of systematic literature reviews on different scientific electronic databases through descriptors related to the antioxidant activity of bee products from Brazil. The iden‐ tification of articles and their inclusion occurred between the months January to May 2016.

#### **2.2. Eletronic databases**

The bibliographic research was conducted in the following electronic databases:

**1.** Scientific Electronic Library Online—SciELO;


This chemical diversity becomes important due to the derived biological properties. Given that apiculture products have great chemical diversity they must be chemically standardized before use to ensure quality, efficacy and safety and thus it is possible to correlate the type of

The word propolis is derived from the Greek word pro that means in defense and polis that means city or community; thus propolis means in community defense. It is a material in resin form with complex and varied chemical composition, which is gathered from various species and parts of plants (sprouts and exudates) and results in a substance of different colors and consistencies [1–3]. Propolis production in Brazil is estimated at around 100 tons per year. A large part of this percentage is for export, either in a raw form as in manufactured goods, reaching high prices in foreign trade and representing an important source of income [4, 5]. Among the apiculture products, propolis has been subject of pharmacological studies due to its antimicrobial [6], antiinflammatory [7] and antioxidant properties [8], among others. This biological potential is due to a synergism that occurs amongst its various constituents. Propolis is an important therapeutic alternative from an economic point of view because of its pharma‐ cological efficacy since it is easy to obtain and presents pharmaceutical properties. The use of substances with antioxidant ability can be very important in the prevention and treatment of diseases related to increased oxidative stress, such as cancer, heart disease and aging [9].

Brazil has a great diversity of vegetation from which bees can collect resins. In addition, diversity increases when products are collected in different regions and seasons. Due to this chemical diversity, there has been intense research over the past decades to classify the differ‐ ent types of propolis and bee products found in Brazil [1, 10, 11]. Propolis needs to be chemi‐ cally standardized before use to ensure quality, efficacy and safety. This way, it is possible to correlate the type of propolis and its therapeutic application, an essential task for a growing market and more demanding throughout the v one of the world's biggest suppliers of bee

In this context, it is important to evaluate the published scientific studies about the antioxi‐

Study of systematic literature reviews on different scientific electronic databases through descriptors related to the antioxidant activity of bee products from Brazil. The iden‐ tification of articles and their inclusion occurred between the months January to May 2016.

The bibliographic research was conducted in the following electronic databases:

product with its therapeutic application.

4 Superfood and Functional Food - An Overview of Their Processing and Utilization

products [3, 11–13].

**2. Research methods**

**2.2. Eletronic databases**

**2.1. Study design**

dant activity of bee products from Brazil.

**1.** Scientific Electronic Library Online—SciELO;

Additional information was obtained from manual search based on the references listed in the articles included in the review.

#### **2.3. Search strategy**

The searches were conducted through cataloged descriptors in Descriptor Health Sciences— DHS and Medical Subject Headings—MeSH, in Portuguese and English, contained in the title or summary of the studies. The combination of terms used together or separately, in the respective databases (SciELO, PLOS Medicine, ScienceDirect) was as follows:


#### **2.4. Selection and analysis of publications**

For the selection of articles, a personal study was created with the following information: author, year, title, development period of the study, Province, city and research area, study design, descriptor used to locate the publication, objective and main results. An inclusion criterion was used in which the selected articles had to be original, published in interna‐ tional and national journals in English or Portuguese, published between 2011 and 2016 and indexed on one of the databases previously cited. Articles that contained evaluation data of the antioxidant activity of apiculture products from Brazil were selected for review.

#### **2.5. Sampling**

About 445.265 scientific articles about antioxidant activity in Brazil and in the world searched in the databases with the descriptors previously mentioned were identified. Of the total num‐ ber of published articles between the years 2011 and 2016, 77 studies were related to the theme of antioxidant activity of bee products. About 60 articles were excluded for being repeated, in other languages or for not containing evaluation of products from Brazil. For this literature review, 17 studies were selected.
