Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices of Spanish Midwives and Midwifery Students toward Oral Healthcare during Pregnancy.

Pregnancy can affect the mother's oral health, increasing their susceptibility to oral diseases that have been associated with harmful effects on the newborn. Despite the severity of oral diseases during pregnancy, the demand for dental care during the gestational period is low, which may improve with the participation of midwives in promoting oral health activities. The objectives of this study were: (i) to determine the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of Spanish midwives and midwifery students regarding oral health in pregnant women; and (ii) to identify the barriers faced by these healthcare professionals in addressing oral health promotion during pregnancy.

Antioxidative effects and percutaneous absorption of five polyphenols.

A new strategy was designed to evaluate the antioxidant effectiveness of five topically applied polyphenols following skin penetration profiles. The antioxidants were the following polyphenol derivatives: epicatechin, resveratrol, rutin, quercetin, and trolox, which was used as the reference antioxidant. The hydrophilic/lipophilic character of these compounds was evaluated, and their antioxidant activity was measured by the DPPH method.

A new approach to produce plant antioxidant-loaded chitosan for modulating proteolytic environment and bacterial growth.

This work reports a straightforward approach for incorporation of plant-derived flavonoid-based antioxidants into an intrinsically antimicrobial chitosan platform in order to generate chitosan-based materials suitable for biomedical applications. The novelty of this approach consists in the use of thioacidolysis - a common analytical method for the characterization of proanthocyanidins - to covalently functionalize natural macromolecules such as chitosan with bioactive phenolic moieties. It is known that proanthocyanidins undergo depolymerization in acid medium, where in the presence of nucleophiles they form stable flavan-3-ol derivatives.

Laccase-assisted formation of bioactive chitosan/gelatin hydrogel stabilized with plant polyphenols.

Laccase-assisted simultaneous cross-linking and functionalization of chitosan/gelatin blends with phenolic compounds from Hamamelis virginiana was investigated for the development of bioactive hydrogel dressings. The potential of these hydrogels for chronic wound treatment was evaluated in vitro, assessing their antibacterial and inhibitory effect on myeloperoxidase and collagenase. Rheological studies revealed that the mechanical properties of the hydrogels were a function of the enzymatic reaction time.

A polyphenol-enriched cocoa extract reduces free radicals produced by mycotoxins.

Polyphenols are characterized by the presence of phenol units in the molecules. These compounds may show antioxidant ability by scavenging reactive oxygen species (ROS) of the free radical type. A polyphenol enriched cocoa extract (PECE) was obtained from cocoa seeds with 28% of procyanidins which were mainly epicatechin oligomers.