β-Carotene

Carotenoids are an important class of naturally occurring pigments found in fruits and vegetables. Among the carotenoids, β-carotene has the greatest provitamin A potential and functions to reduce the risk of cancer, cardiovascular diseases and macular degeneration. Low water solubility and poor chemical stability attributes to low absorption of β-carotene from food. β-carotene along with digestible lipids enriches its bio accessibility. Emulsions or nano emulsions encapsulates effectively delivers lipophilic β-carotene and increases its bioavailability. β-carotene has anti-oxidant potential and reduces noise induced hearing loss and progression of macular degeneration.

β-carotene has been used:

• to generate nano emulsions to evaluate their bioavailability potential
• as a standard, for β-carotene evaluation in blood and skin samples using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC),
• as a dietary supplement of vitamin-A in young rats by HPLC
• as a dietary supplement in mice to reduce hearing loss and hair cell damage

The most important of the provitamins A, β-carotene can be classified as an antioxidant due to its inhibition of radical initiated peroxidation in vitro. However, in vivo it appears to act either as an antioxidant or a prooxidant depending on cellular environment. It reduces the incidence of many cancers, but enhances lung cancer incidence in smokers.

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