Author Description

This book contains the proceedings of the final conference of COST Action 916 held in Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain) from 26 to 28 April 2001. The aim of the conference was to review the progress in research on bioactive plant food components during the five-year duration of COST Action 916 on 'Bioactive plant cell wall components in nutrition and health'. The target compounds studied in this European action have been polyphenols, phytoesterols, phytoestrogens and phytic acid. Special emphasis has been given to those foods and beverages containing bioactive compounds which could make a significant contribution to diet in European countries. The main topics covered in the conference were distributed within four workshops: Workshop 1: Bioactive compounds in foods: Content, antioxidant capacity and effect of processing and storage. Workshop 2: Bioavailability and biological effects of bioactive compounds. Workshop 3: Implication on human health. Antioxidant status. Oxidative stress. Disease prevention. Workshop 4: Dietary intakes and epidemiology. All plenary lectures given by outstanding specialists in their respective fields are published as full papers, whereas the short oral communications and the poster presentations are included in the book as two-page extended abstracts. The book gives on the one hand an excellent overview on the state of the art of the topic 'Bioactive plant constituents in human food and health'. On the other hand, it contains an enormous amount of new results obtained by research groups mainly from Europe, but also from other parts of the world.