Polyphenols’ effect on cerebrovascular health

Polyphenols are a wide group of plant components that include a high number of individual compounds and are present in foods, dietary supplements, and drugs. Many of them have shown pharmacological effects, are used in cardiovascular disease prevention, and not as many have been assayed in cancer treatment or co-treatment. In the last few years, however, the research on polyphenols' implications in healthy aging, especially in neurodegeneration and cognition improvement, has increased dramatically. Most of the results found in this sense are again related to the capacity of some specific polyphenols to regulate the blood flow, but this time at the cerebral level, and to protect the endothelium at this same level. In this thorough review, we want to concentrate precisely on the effect of polyphenols on cerebrovascular homeostasis, reviewing the mechanisms that underline this effect and the radiological methods and endogenous biomarkers that are used in human trials aimed at showing the beneficial effect of polyphenols or polyphenol rich foods on neuroprotection and cognition function.Peer reviewe