Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Pharmacol Ther. Aug 6, 2015; 6(3): 59-72
Published online Aug 6, 2015. doi: 10.4292/wjgpt.v6.i3.59
Antioxidants in liver health
Sael Casas-Grajales, Pablo Muriel
Sael Casas-Grajales, Pablo Muriel, Department of Pharmacology, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, México City 07000, México
Author contributions: Both authors contributed to this paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest in the present work.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Pablo Muriel, PhD, Department of Pharmacology, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, D.F., C.P. 14-740, México City 07000, México. pmuriel@cinvestav.mx
Telephone: +52-55-57473303 Fax: +52-55-57473394
Received: February 4, 2015
Peer-review started: February 6, 2015
First decision: April 10, 2015
Revised: June 4, 2015
Accepted: June 18, 2015
Article in press: June 19, 2015
Published online: August 6, 2015
Processing time: 185 Days and 1.9 Hours
Abstract

Liver diseases are a worldwide medical problem because the liver is the principal detoxifying organ and maintains metabolic homeostasis. The liver metabolizes various compounds that produce free radicals (FR). However, antioxidants scavenge FR and maintain the oxidative/antioxidative balance in the liver. When the liver oxidative/antioxidative balance is disrupted, the state is termed oxidative stress. Oxidative stress leads to deleterious processes in the liver and produces liver diseases. Therefore, restoring antioxidants is essential to maintain homeostasis. One method of restoring antioxidants is to consume natural compounds with antioxidant capacity. The objective of this review is to provide information pertaining to various antioxidants found in food that have demonstrated utility in improving liver diseases.

Keywords: Antioxidant; Oxidative stress; Naringenin; Quercetin; Curcumin; Resveratrol; Silymarin; Coffee; Liver diseases

Core tip: The objective of this review is to provide an evidence-based update of antioxidants present in food and to describe their benefits on liver diseases.