Antioxidant properties of seaweed-derived substances

Seaweed contains a wide range of antioxidant substances with potential to be used in the development of new natural ingredients for the food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical industry. Such ingredients can act as natural preservatives for preventing product deterioration during storage, in particular in the form of rancidity due to oxidation of unsaturated fatty acids in, e.g., food products.

In this chapter, the occurrence and antioxidative properties of seaweed-derived substances will be discussed in relation to lipid oxidation in functional food products. This research area is relatively new, and only the antioxidant activity of extracts from brown algae Fucus vesiculosus has been thoroughly studied in different functional food products rich in unsaturated fatty acids.