Cinnamon Bark Extract
-Polyphenol
But do you know what a polyphenol really is? It’s a simple concept, actually. It starts with phenol (FEE·nole), a small organic compound consisting of a benzene ring (a hexagon made of six carbon atoms, each with one hydrogen atom attached) in which one of the hydrogens has been replaced by a hydroxyl group, –OH.* If a larger molecule contains a phenol unit as part of its own structure, it’s called a phenolic compound. And if it contains more than one phenol unit, it’s called a polyphenolic compound, or simply a polyphenol. In many polyphenols, an additional hydroxyl group or two is attached to one or more of the benzene rings.
*Phenol (also called carbolic acid) is an odd compound—an alcohol that behaves like an acid instead of a base. It’s an important industrial chemical, used in making Nylon, plastics, resins, dyestuffs, explosives, and pharmaceuticals, among other things. In medicine, it’s used as an antiseptic and disinfectant. If taken internally, it’s caustic and poisonous—not the kind of substance you would expect as the basis for a cornucopia of health-giving compounds.
Epicatechin
There are many different classes of polyphenols, of which the three major ones are tannins, lignins, and flavonoids. And the six major classes of flavonoids, with their many subclasses, comprise over 4000 different compounds, at least 50 of which are present in plant-based foods and beverages, notably berries, tea, and red wine. Unless (or even if) you’re a chemistry junkie, it’s hard to keep all the names straight and remember which compounds belong to which class.
Two notable features of dietary flavonoids (and of most biologically active polyphenols of other types) are: (1) they are beneficial to our health, and (2) they have virtually no known toxicity or adverse side effects.
The health benefits of polyphenol-rich foods have been recognized for thousands of years. Modern scientists have long believed that these benefits derive mainly from the polyphenols’ strong antioxidant properties (in laboratory experiments), but recent research has suggested that other mechanisms may be much more important in living organisms. In any case, polyphenols offer a host of documented benefits against heart disease, cancer, inflammation, dementia, vision disorders, allergies, impotence, viral infections, and more.