Many foods contain health- protective constituents.
We know about vitamins and minerals in foods which are essential as co-factors for cellular function and can measure them readily in the most obscure plants, in blood and in a range of tissues. However, the vitamins A, C and E and selenium can only explain a part of the antioxidant story, and their main roles in the body are probably not as antioxidants. To the rescue, then, came the botanists with analytical skills to develop tests for phenolic compounds. With these new methods it becomes possible to discover what these compounds are doing in plants, how much is present in foods, how they are absorbed and how they function in the body. The methods developed in Glasgow for flavonol measurements in plants, as well as in plasma, urine and body tissues, are now internationally recognised.