ABSTRACT
The last two decades have witnessed in several areas a renaissance in research activities on anthocyanins, mainly related to their potential health-promoting properties, their use as natural food colorants, and their appearance in cultivars and plant mutants with new colors and color patterns. Today, there exists convincing scientic evidence in support of the association between diet and chronic diseases. As a consequence, dietary guidelines have been formulated around the world for general prevention of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, osteoporosis, and so on, incorporating the recommendation to increase the consumption of plant-based foods that are good sources of biologically active phytochemicals, also including anthocyanins and other avonoids. So, if intake of anthocyanins has positive health effect(s), and if the various anthocyanins or their derivatives in the human body have different properties, then of course both the qualitative and quantitative anthocyanin content of our food as well as the individual chemistry of these compounds should be more closely considered.
