Sea Buckthorn Vegetative Parts – A Good Source of Bioactive Compounds

Abstract

In recent years, due to the health problems and better life expectancy, natural sources of bioactive substances have gained wide interest. Sea buckthorn is well known as a valuable plant and is widely used in traditional medicine for the treatment of diseases and disorders. A considerable amount of literature has been published on sea buckthorn berries, although all parts of sea buckthorn plant are considered as a source of a large amount of biological active substances, and believed to have beneficial health effects. Therefore, vegetative parts would be a good raw material not only for medicinal, cosmetic and pharmaceutical properties, but also for the food industry. This has increased the research on different sea buckthorn vegetative parts and their extract activity and toxicity. Sea buckthorn leaves have attracted interest during the past few years as the most promising source of active compounds after berries. They contain a wide range of hydrophilic and lipophilic bioactive compounds, which exhibit remarkable anti-oxidant potential together with anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-tumour and anti-inflammatory activity. Therefore, extracts of the plant leaves could be used as natural replacements for synthetic additives and for food products with functional properties. This creates the need to investigate the biochemical content of sea buckthorn vegetative parts grown in Latvia.