Dear Colleagues,

We are glad to invite you to submit a manuscript to the Special Issue “Bioactive Compounds from Plant Origin and Therapeutic and Nutraceutical Properties for Human Health” in the open access journal Foods (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/foods/, ISSN 2304-8158). We look forward to receiving your submissions.

Herbal medicines have played an important role in the discovery of new drugs and innovative mechanisms of action and have a long usage history as alternative treatments. Similarly, many plants are part of the diet, in functional foods, and they are important in maintaining health and wellbeing, as well as in disease prevention.

Among the various mechanisms exhibited by substances originating from these sources, antioxidant effects have been one of the most studied mechanisms. Given the importance of oxidative stress and the deleterious effects of reactive oxygen species in several diseases, the study of molecules that are able to prevent or reduce the magnitude of these oxidative mediators is of great importance.

An inflammatory process, which can also be caused by oxidative stress, is also responsible for the development of many chronic diseases such as diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, stroke, and even cancer; the cellular pathways that regulate inflammatory processes have become very important in the research of many diseases.

The pleiotropic effects of substances derived from herbal and food sources and their ability to modulate several cellular, biochemical, and pharmacological targets that have the ability to modulate the development of several diseases have made this line of research one of the most active in recent years. Many other parallel and related mechanisms are being identified for herbal/food-derived substances and may contribute greatly to a better understanding of the pathophysiology of diseases while elucidating new and promising pharmacological targets.

The authors of this Special Issue invite researchers to contribute original research articles as well as review articles related to the study of the beneficial effect of bioactive compounds from plant origin/food products that contribute to the knowledge in this area and may have new data regarding a potential beneficial effect, either from in vitro, in vivo, or human experiments.

Prof. Dr. Maria Eduardo-Figueira
Dr. Rosa Direito
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2900 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.

• antioxidants
• inflammation
• anti-inflammatory
• polyphenols
• functional foods
• nutraceuticals
• bioactive compounds