New Pharmacological Approaches Using Polyphenols on the Physiopathology of Neuropathic Pain

Polyphenols constitute a group of a paramount importance within the natural products in the plant kingdom, with an approximate amount of 8000 phenolic structures currently known. Fruits, vegetables, whole grains and several other foods and beverages (as tea, chocolate and wine, for instance) are rich and important sources of polyphenols. The scientific literature provides pre-clinical experimental evidence on the antinociceptive effects of polyphenolic compounds, found in plant extracts, in animal models of neuropathic pain. But not only neuropathic pain is attenuated: in fact, nociceptive pain, caused by stimulation of nerve fibers (either somatic or visceral) responding only to stimuli approaching or exceeding harmful intensity thresholds (nociceptors), and also inflammatory pain, which is associated with tissue damage and infiltration of immune cells, are both reduced and alleviated by polyphenols. In the present work, the antinociceptive effects of polyphenols are reviewed.