Several mechanistic hypotheses have been proposed for how carotenoid pigmentation of integumentary structures can serve as an honest signal of individual quality. These hypotheses are founded on proposed links between carotenoids, immuno responsiveness, and oxidative stress, but an absence of biochemical information on the oxidative pathways of carotenoids has limited the sophistication of such...

BACKGROUND Several epidemiologic studies have reported an inverse association between serum levels of carotenoids and cardiovascular disease risk. However, no studies have reported an association between serum carotenoids and N-terminal pro-brain-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) in the general population. METHODS In this cross-sectional study, we investigated whether serum carotenoids wer...

BACKGROUND Several previous epidemiologic studies have shown that high blood levels of carotenoids may be protective against early atherosclerosis, but results have been inconsistent. We assessed the association between atherosclerotic progression, measured by intima-media thickness of the common carotid artery wall, and serum levels of carotenoids. METHODS We studied the effect of carotenoid...

Marine carotenoids are important bioactive compounds with physiological activities related to prevention of degenerative diseases found principally in plants, with potential antioxidant biological properties deriving from their chemical structure and interaction with biological membranes. They are substances with very special and remarkable properties that no other groups of substances possess ...

Oxidative stress is an important contributor to the risk of chronic diseases. Dietary guidelines recommend increased consumption of fruits and vegetables to combat the incidence of human diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis and diabetes. Fruits and vegetables are good sources of antioxidant phytochemicals that mitigate the damaging effect of oxidative stress. Carotenoid...

Carotenoids and chlorophylls are photosynthetic pigments synthesized in plastids from metabolic precursors provided by the methylerythritol 4-phosphate (MEP) pathway. The first two steps in the MEP pathway are catalyzed by the deoxyxylulose 5-phosphate synthase (DXS) and reductoisomerase (DXR) enzymes. While DXS has been recently shown to be the main flux-controlling step of the MEP pathway, bo...

Carotenoids are important antioxidant compounds, present in many foods of plant, animal and marine origin. The aim of the present study was to describe the carotenoid composition of tomato waste, prawn muscle and cephalothorax and avian (duck and goose) egg yolks through the use of a modified gradient elution HPLC method with a C30 reversed-phase column for the efficient separation and analysis...

Among birds, vultures show low concentrations of plasma carotenoids due to the combination of their large size, general dull colouration and a diet based on carrion. We recorded the concentration of each carotenoid type present in plasma of the Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) according to age and sex, that determine colour signalling and dominance hierarchies in the carcasses. We compared the ca...

The ultrafast internal conversion (IC) dynamics of seven C(40) carotenoids have been investigated at room temperature in a variety of solvents using two-color transient lens (TL) pump-probe spectroscopy. We provide comprehensive data sets for the carbonyl carotenoids canthaxanthin, astaxanthin, and-for the first time-echinenone, as well as new data for lycopene, beta-carotene, (3R,3'R)-zeaxanth...

Mammographic density is one of the strongest predictors of breast cancer risk. Recently, it has been suggested that reactive oxygen species may influence breast cancer risk through its influence on mammographic density. In the current study, we addressed this hypothesis and also assessed if the association between carotenoids and breast cancer risk varies by mammographic density. We conducted a...