Advances in Research on the Distribution and Pharmacological Activities of Epicatechin

With the development of society and growing of people’s health care awareness, the activities of many plant flavonoids have been paid more and more attention. Epicatechin, which possesses the flavonoid structure of catechin compound, is one of the important bioactive components as well as widely found in tea, cocoa, herbs, its content in tea could be approximately up to 5%-7% of catechins. Because of its basic flavanol structure, it has many pharmacological activities of flavonoids, many modern medicine researches have revealed that epicatechin owns many physiological activities such as antioxidant, hypoglycemic, hypoglycemic, insulin resistance, as well as preventing cardiovascular disease, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, enhancing immunity, and so on. The epicatechin polyhydroxy structure would be contributed to these bioactivities. In this paper, the natural sources, structural analysis and multi-pharmacological activities of epicatechin were reviewed, meanwhile, the development and application prospect of epicatechin from natural plant sources in nation were proposed, which would provide theoretical reference for the development and research of this compound in the future.