Dietary bioactive compounds as modulators of mitochondrial function
Sarai Vásquez-Reyes The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry Volume 96, October 2021, 108768
Highlights
• Respirometry analysis allows the evaluation of mitochondrial function in real time.
• Several food bioactives improve health via modulation of mitochondrial activity.
• Oxygen consumption rate (OCR) is a key parameter to assess mitochondrial activity.
• Polyphenols increase OCR and respiratory capacity in multiple cell types.
• Some gut-derived metabolites produced from food bioactives modulate OCR in myocytes.
• Mitochondrial activation by food bioactives has upstream induction of AMPK/SIRT1.
The increase in incidence and prevalence of metabolic diseases, such as diabetes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome, is a health problem worldwide. Nutritional strategies that can impact on mitochondrial activity represent a novel and effective option to modulate energy expenditure and energetic metabolism in cells and tissues and could be used as adjuvant treatments for metabolic-associated disorders. Dietary bioactive compounds also known as “food bioactives” have proven to exert multiple health benefits and counteract metabolic alterations. In the last years, it has been consistently reported that the modulation of mitochondrial function represents one of the mechanisms behind the bioactive compounds-dependent health improvements. In this review, we focus on gathering, summarizing, and discussing the evidence that supports the effect of dietary bioactive compounds on mitochondrial activity and the relation of these effects in the pathological context. Despite the evidence presented here on in vivo and in vitro effects, more studies are needed to determine their effectiveness in humans.