María Ángeles Ávila-Gálvez

• Nutrition & Food Technology PhD
• PostDoc Position at Spanish National Research Council

Hydroxytyrosol (HT) consumption is associated with healthy outcomes. Specifically, its ability to modulate microRNA (miRNA) expression has been described. However, whether HT influences the secretion of extracellular vesicles (EVs) and their transported miRNAs remains unknown. Here, following HT administration, we explored the potential changes in...

The ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) is a critical cellular mechanism involved in protein turnover, influencing processes such as cell cycle regulation, gene expression, and stress responses. Dysregulation of the UPS contributes to the pathogenesis of chronic diseases, including neurodegeneration, cardiovascular disorders, and cancer. This review...

Personalized nutrition” aims to establish nutritional strategies to improve health outcomes for non‐responders. However, it is utopian since most people share similar nutritional requirements. “Precision health,” encompassing lifestyles, may be more fitting. Dietary (poly)phenols are “healthy” but non‐nutritional molecules (thus, we can live withou...

11β,13-Dihydrolactucin, a sesquiterpene lactone found in chicory, presents promising anti-inflammatory potential in complementary in vitro and in vivo models of intestinal inflammation, acting at several levels of the cellular inflammatory response.

Recently, the development of functional beverages has been enhanced to promote health and nutritional well-being. Thus, the fermentation of plant foods with lactic acid bacteria can enhance their antioxidant capacity and others like anti-inflammatory activity, which may depend on the variations in the total content and profile of (poly)phenols. The...

Echinacea purpurea L. (EP) preparations are globally popular herbal supplements known for their medicinal benefits, including anti-inflammatory activities, partly related to their phenolic composition. However, regarding their use for the management of inflammation-related intestinal diseases, the knowledge about the fate of orally ingested constit...

Current knowledge indicates that the consumption of isoflavone-rich foodstuffs can have a beneficial impact on cardiovascular health. Less clear is to what extent these isoflavones act as the main actors...

Despite researchers’ and clinicians’ exponential understanding of chronic diseases’ complexity, ranging from cancer, diabetes, and neurodegenerative disorders, we still have a lot of unanswered questions on pathobiology mechanisms, wherein inflammation is central [...]

Sesquiterpene lactones - such as those found in chicory - are considered promising bioactive compounds. These small molecules have shown several health benefits for various diseases, including brain disorders. However, it is unknown whether these compounds can cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB), and which could be the effects on brain microvascula...

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) remains one of the leading causes of death and disability in young adults worldwide. Despite growing evidence and advances in our knowledge regarding the multifaceted pathophysiology of TBI, the underlying mechanisms, though, are still to be fully elucidated. Whereas initial brain insult involves acute and irreversible...

The Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor (AHR) is a ligand-dependent transcription factor able to control complex transcriptional processes in several cell types, which has been correlated with various diseases, including inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Numerous studies have described different compounds as ligands of this receptor, like xenobiotics, natur...

Previous studies have shown that a resistant dextrin-soluble fibre has prebiotic properties with related health benefits on blood glucose management and satiety. Our aim was to demonstrate the effects of continuous administration of resistant dextrin on intestinal gas production, digestive sensations, and gut microbiota metabolism and composition....

Exosomes are extracellular vesicles (EVs) that regulate intercellular signaling by transferring small RNAs, proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, and other metabolites to local or distant organs, including the brain, by crossing the blood–brain barrier. However, the transport of (poly)phenols in human EVs has not yet been described. Therefore, we aimed...

A large number of epidemiological studies have shown that consumption of fruits, vegetables, and beverages rich in (poly)phenols promote numerous health benefits from cardiovascular to neurological diseases. Evidence on (poly)phenols has been applied mainly to flavonoids, yet the role of phenolic acids has been largely overlooked. Such phenolics pr...

SARS-CoV-2 is a highly transmissible and pathogenic coronavirus causing a respiratory disease that emerged in 2019, leading to a public health emergency situation which continues to date. The treatment options are still very limited and vaccines available are less effective against new variants. SARS-CoV-2 enzymes, namely main protease (Mpro) and p...

Angiogenesis is a complex process encompassing endothelial cell proliferation, migration, and tube formation. While numerous studies describe that curcumin exerts antitumor properties (e.g., targeting angiogenesis), information regarding other dietary curcuminoids such as demethoxycurcumin (DMC) and bisdemethoxycurcumin (BisDMC) is scant. In this s...

Urolithins, metabolites produced by the gut microbiota from the polyphenols ellagitannins and ellagic acid, were discovered by our research group in humans almost twenty years ago. Pioneering research suggested urolithins as pleiotropic bioactive contributors to explain the health benefits after consuming ellagitannin‐rich sources (pomegranates, wa...

Despite the high human interindividual variability in response to (poly)phenol consumption, the cause-and-effect relationship between some dietary (poly)phenols (flavanols and olive oil phenolics) and health effects (endothelial function and prevention of LDL oxidation, respectively) has been well established. Most of the variables affecting this i...

Background The consumption of pomegranate juices and extracts has long been linked to many health benefits beyond nutrition, described mainly by innumerable preclinical studies. However, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded in 2010 that a cause and effect relationship could not be established between the consumption of pomegranate-de...

Scope Some polyphenol‐derived metabolites reach human breast cancer (BC) tissues at concentrations that induce cell senescence. However, this is unknown for isoflavones, curcuminoids, and lignans. We evaluated here their metabolic profiling in normal (NT) and malignant (MT) mammary tissues of newly‐diagnosed BC patients and explored the tissue‐occu...

The intake of hesperidin-rich sources, mostly found in orange juice, can decrease cardiometabolic risk, potentially linked to the gut microbial phase-II hesperetin derivatives. However, the low hesperidin solubility hampers its bioavailability and microbial metabolism, yielding a high inter-individual variability (high vs. low-producers) that preve...

The hydrolyzable tannins ellagitannins (ETs) and ellagic acid (EA) are polyphenols present in food sources such as pomegranates, berries, and walnuts. However, they are poorly absorbed on consumption, but the gut microbiota metabolizes them. In recent decades, an extensive literature has attributed a wide range of beneficial effects to these natura...

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common malignancy and the leading cause of cancer-related death in adult women worldwide. Over 85% of BC cases are non-hereditary, caused by modifiable extrinsic factors related to lifestyle, including dietary habits, which play a crucial role in cancer prevention. Although many epidemiological and observational studi...

The promotion of senescence in cancer cells by dietary (poly)phenols gained attention as a promising chemopreventive strategy against colorectal (CRC) and other cancers. Urolithins (Uros) are ellagitannins and ellagic acid-derived gut microbiota metabolites that reach high concentrations in the human colon. They were postulated to be as potential a...

We recently showed that methylxanthines and conjugated phenolic-derived metabolites reached the mammary tissue (MT) of breast cancer patients after consuming a blend of phenolic-rich extracts. The pre-surgery fasting could prevent the detection of some (including those non-conjugated) metabolites. We investigated here the pharmacokinetics in rat pl...

Scope: Recent evidence demonstrates that resveratrol (RSV) metabolites, but not free RSV, reach malignant tumours (MT) in breast cancer (BC) patients. Since these metabolites, as detected in MT, do not exert short-term antiproliferative or estrogenic/antiestrogenic activities, long-term tumour-senescent chemoprevention has been hypothesised. Conse...

Urolithin A (Uro-A) is an anti-inflammatory and cancer chemopreventive metabolite produced by the gut microbiota from the polyphenol ellagic acid. However, in vivo conjugation of Uro-A to Uro-A glucuronide (Uro-A glur) dramatically hampers its activity. We describe here for the first time the tissue deconjugation of Uro-A glur to Uro-A after lipopo...

Scope: Dietary polyphenols may protect against breast cancer. However, it is unknown whether polyphenols reach human malignant breast tumours in molecular forms and(or) at concentrations likely to act against cancer. Methods & Results: Breast cancer patients (n = 19) consumed three capsules daily from biopsy‐confirmed diagnosis to surgery (6 ± 2 da...

Combining natural products as co-adjuvants in 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) chemotherapy might enhance the effectiveness of 5-FU by avoiding a high dosage and/or reducing treatment times. We explored the anticancer efficacy of the phytosterols (PS) at concentrations achievable in the human colon, as well as their potential as sensitizing agents of human co...

‘Our results suggest potential health beneficial effects although further in vivo studies are needed…’ Perhaps, this is the most repeated conclusion in the in vitro studies dealing with dietary (poly)phenols in the last decades. Since early epidemiological and observational studies suggested that dietary (poly)phenols could play an important prote...

While preclinical studies suggest the breast cancer (BC) chemopreventive effects of dietary polyphenols, the human evidence is still very weak. The huge existing in vitro-in vivo gap is mainly due to the plethora of potential effects reported by in vitro studies that usually assay polyphenols as occurring in the food (beverages, extracts, foods) an...

Gut microbiota dysbiosis alters the intestinal barrier function, increases plasma lipopolysaccharide (LPS) levels, which promotes endotoxemia, and contributes to the onset and development of colorectal cancer (CRC). We report here...