Antioxidant Activity of Fermented Foods

Dear Colleagues,

Fermented foods are produced by the action of microorganisms on food substances, resulting in the production of a wide range of compounds that contribute to their unique flavor, texture, and nutritional value. In recent years, the health benefits of fermented foods have gained attention, particularly their antioxidant activity.

During oxidative stress, an important factor in the development of many diseases, cellular oxidative and antioxidant activities are imbalanced due to various internal and external factors such as inflammation or diet. Antioxidants are compounds that protect cells from damage caused by free radicals. Therefore, diverse synthetic and natural antioxidants have received increasing interest from the scientific and industrial fields of nutraceutical research and development, due to their abilities to maintain human health and prevent serious human diseases. In particular, natural antioxidants, such as polyphenols, carotenoids, flavonoids, and anthocyanins, have been considered to be promising as a result of their excellent activities and non-toxic properties.

Fermentation can increase antioxidant activity in foods because microbial hydrolysis reactions during fermentation increase the content of phenolic compounds and flavonoids. Therefore, humans can adequately supplement their diet with natural antioxidants by consuming fermented foods. In addition, the application of probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, paraprobiotics and postbiotics from fermentation foods has been reported to improve host health via antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial as well as gut modulation effects. Recently, gut microbiota has attracted more and more attention as a “vital organ” in close contact with other organs and thus mediate human health, animal nutrition and production. The study of antioxidative and gut microbial modulation effect of fermentation foods towards one-health perspective would help in highlighting the importance of understanding the prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics effects from a multisectoral perspective and requires coordinated, collaborative, multidisciplinary, and cross-sectoral approaches.

This Special Issue focuses on the antioxidant activity of fermented foods, and also includes the biosynthesis and mass production of antioxidants from fermented foods and food microorganisms (e.g., lactic acid bacteria, yeast, fungi, bacteria, etc.), as well as the evaluation of their antioxidative functions and gut microbial modulation effects.

Dr. Xiaodan Huang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fermentation is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• fermented foods
• antioxidants
• fermentation
• biosynthesis
• vitamin
• isoflavone
• carotenoid
• flavonoid
• microorganisms