Phytochemicals

Phytochemicals are found in a wide array of plants and are most commonly consumed in foods and beverages such as fruits, coffee, green tea, garlic, green peppers, red wine, onions, yogurt, bran, and cruciferous vegetables.  Thousands of phytochemicals have been isolated and characterized from plants. For example a single orange, typically contains more than 170 identifiable phytochemicals, which include large groups of flavonoids, limonoids, carotenoids, and terpenoids.

In plants, phytochemicals serve as a means of defense and are believed to have first evolved in order to help them adjust to changes in the Earth's atmosphere. Over the ages, plants have developed the biochemical means of protection from environmental hazards such as viruses, bacteria, and fungi that could affect their chances for survival. Many of these same substances, it has been discovered, may offer protection to animals, including humans, when they are consumed in the diet. Hence these substances have been of intense interest among the scientific community in recent years and are blazing a new frontier in the arena of disease-prevention research.