Angela Vavalà
PC40 – Angela Vavalà
Department of Health Science, University Magna Græcia of Catanzaro, Italy
angela.vavala@studenti.unicz.it
| Accurate profiling of EVOO secoiridoids for EFSA health claim validation: comparing UHPLC-ESI-HRMS approach against official methods. |
| Vavalà Angela1, Bonacci Sonia1, Oliverio Manuela1, Nardi Monica1, Procopio Antonio1 1 Department of Health Science, University Magna Græcia of Catanzaro, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy |
| Abstract Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) is the key lipid component of the Mediterranean Diet, widely recognized as a functional food. Its biological properties (anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antiproliferative) are approximately 90% attributable to its phenolic fraction, particularly secoiridoids. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has approved a health claim associating EVOO polyphenols with the protection of blood lipids from oxidative stress, applicable exclusively to oils containing at least 5 mg of hydroxytyrosol and its derivatives per 20 g of product. However, the industrial and pharmaceutical application of this claim is severely limited by the inadequacy of officially proposed quantitative methods, which rely on acid hydrolysis or express total phenols in standard equivalent units, thus providing only approximate estimations. A further critical issue is the poor availability of commercial reference standards for these complex molecules and the rapid chemical variations they undergo during storage. The main objective of this study is to apply our already developed and validated UHPLC-ESI-HRMS method [1] for the direct and precise quantification of individual secoiridoid derivatives. To overcome the lack of commercial references, seven biologically active compounds (tyrosol, hydroxytyrosol, oleocanthal, oleacein, oleuropein aglycone, verbascoside, and oleuropein) were previously synthesized in our laboratory using green semi-synthetic methodologies from olive oil by-products. Following an optimized hydroalcoholic extraction protocol, this validated molecule-by-molecule approach was tested on seven high-quality EVOO samples of certified origin to evaluate their chemical stability over time and unambiguously certify their nutraceutical properties. Crucially, the results were directly compared with the official standard method, which measures phenolic content merely in terms of tyrosol and hydroxytyrosol equivalents. The goal of this comparison is to demonstrate how our true and selective quantification of bioactive secoiridoids easily overcomes the approximations of traditional protocols. Ultimately, this approach serves as a robust, essential analytical tool for the valorization of olive oil products, offering a detailed picture for the accurate certification of their therapeutic properties and EFSA compliance in the nutraceutical sector. |
| References [1] Frisina, M.; Bonacci, S.; Oliverio, M.; Nardi, M.; Vatrano, T.P.; Procopio, A. Storage Effects on Bioactive Phenols in Calabrian Monovarietal Extra Virgin Olive Oils Based on the EFSA Health Claim. Foods 2023, 12, 3799. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods12203799 Academic Editors: Luisa Mannina and Mattia Spano Received: 27 September 2023 Revised: 13 October 2023 Accepted: 15 October 2023 Published: 17 October 2023 |