Carotenoids

Carotenoids are an essential component of the human diet. Bioactive by nature, they are rich in antioxidants, promote vitamin A activity and lower the development of chronic illnesses. As such they are an area of growing interest to researchers and scientists who are working to design, develop and launch new functional food products, dietary supplements and other nutritional solutions.

Carotenoids: Nutrition, Analysis and Technology is an up-to-date overview of the key areas of carotenoids in nutrition, therapy and technology. In the first section, the authors present a functional food perspective, outlining the therapeutic applications of the bioactive pigments. The second part is dedicated to the spectroscopic analysis of carotenoids, providing in-depth scientific methods and real research findings. In the final section, various technological applications of carotenoids are considered, including biotechnology and future prospects.

Written by international experts in the field, this comprehensive book will be of interest to food scientists and researchers, nutritionists and health food companies. It will be of particular use to anyone involved in the spectroscopic analysis of carotenoids and other related bioactives.

Agnieszka Kaczor is a postgraduate researcher in the Faculty of Chemistry at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. Her scientific interests concentrate on the application of vibrational spectroscopy and multitechnique imaging to study biological samples. Recently, she has focused on studying changes in cells and tissues upon pathology development with the help of Raman and AFM imaging as well as the
application of Raman optical activity to investigate bioactive compounds.

Malgorzata Baranska is a professor in the Faculty of Chemistry at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. She focuses on research of plant and medical bioactive compounds by means of spectroscopic methods, particularly modern Raman techniques (i.e., Raman imaging and Raman optical activity). The new direction of her research is related to lifestyle diseases, their development and methods of curing. This research in various in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo animal models is conducted partly in the Jagiellonian Centre for Experimental Therapeutics (JCET).