**Honey as a Functional Food Honey as a Functional Food**

Rosa Helena Luchese, Edlene Ribeiro Prudêncio and André Fioravante Guerra Rosa Helena Luchese, Edlene Ribeiro Prudêncio and André Fioravante Guerra

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/67020

#### **Abstract**

The most well‐known functional properties of honey are its antioxidant and antimicro‐ bial activities. The bioactive components of honey are affected by the flora from which it is produced and by geographical variations. Phenolic compounds promote, among other activities, high antioxidant action, being capable of minimizing intracellular oxida‐ tive damage associated with cellular aging, apoptosis and neurodegenerative diseases. A living cell system would provide a better platform for determining antioxidant activity, since the bioactive honey compounds can act modulating antioxidant defense gene expression. Indeed, phenolic compounds, amino acids and reducing sugars are among the substances responsible for honey antioxidant activity. Most of phenolic compounds also exert antimicrobial activity against a number of pathogens and spoilage microorgan‐ isms. The antimicrobial activity of honey is also due to the action of enzymes. In addition, honey was found to contain lactic acid bacteria (LAB), which itself produce a myriad of active compounds that remain in variable amounts in mature honey. In addition, these antioxidant compounds might play a key role as prebiotic, protecting and stimulating growth of probiotic bacteria. Oligosaccharides present in honey are well‐known prebi‐ otic substances stimulating growth, activity and protecting probiotic bacteria during pas‐ sage through the gastrointestinal tract and during storage of the products. This chapter describes the main bioactive components of honey, especially with respect to the pheno‐ lic compounds and their antioxidant activity and assay methods.

**Keywords:** oligosaccharides, antioxidants, prebiotic

#### **1. Introduction**

Honey is a complex product that can be easily digested and assimilation and is produced from the nectar, a sugary liquid of flowers, due to action of bee enzymes (diastase, invertase and glucose oxidase) [1].

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2017 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The great majority of the dry weight of honey (95–98%) consists of carbohydrates, mainly glucose and fructose, but also sucrose, maltose and other oligosaccharides. A minor portion (2–5%) is made up of various secondary metabolites, such as polyphenols and flavonoids, minerals, proteins, amino acids, enzymes, organic acids, minerals, vitamins, fatty acids, pol‐ len and other solid particles from the process of obtaining honey [1, 2]. It also contains traces of fungi, algae, yeasts and lactic acid bacteria (LAB) [3].

Prebiotics are substances that beneficially affect the host by selectively stimulating the growth and/or activity of one or a limited number of bacteria in the colon, the probiotic bacteria. Honey is often used as a sweetener but its use in medical preparations date from ancient cultures [4, 5]. Such functional properties includes antibacterial, antioxidant, antitumor, anti‐inflammatory, antibrowning and antiviral [6, 7]. More recently, it was also found to be prebiotic and even a source of probiotic microorganisms [8, 9].

Antioxidant activity is defined as the capability of a compound to protect an organism from oxidant attack. Two widely used methods to verify this capability are the diphenylpicrylhy‐ drazyl (DPPH) and the 2,2′‐azinobis (3‐ ethylbenzthiazoline‐6‐sulfonic acid) (ABTS) assays. Both of them share the same mechanism of the reduction of the stable free radical but not measure the effect of an antioxidant on cell survival [9]. The biological yeast‐based method can also measure the ability of a compound to induce cellular resistance to the damaging effects of oxidants [10, 11].

This chapter describes the main bioactive components of honey, with emphasis on phenolic compounds, antioxidant activity and assay methods.
