Abstract：

Phenolic compounds and flavonoids are potential substitutes for bioactive agents in pharmaceuticaland medicinal sections to promote human health and prevent and cure different diseases.The most common flavonoids found in nature are anthocyanins, flavones, flavanones, flavonols,flavanonols, isoflavones, and other sub-classes. The impacts of plant flavonoids and other phenolicson human health promoting and diseases curing and preventing are antioxidant effects, antibacterialimpacts, cardioprotective effects, anticancer impacts, immune system promoting, anti-inflammatoryeffects, and skin protective effects from UV radiation. This work aims to provide an overview ofphenolic compounds and flavonoids as potential and important sources of pharmaceutical andmedical application according to recently published studies, as well as some interesting directions forfuture research. The keyword searches for flavonoids, phenolics, isoflavones, tannins, coumarins,lignans, quinones, xanthones, curcuminoids, stilbenes, cucurmin, phenylethanoids, and secoiridoidsmedicinal plant were performed by using Web of Science, Scopus, Google scholar, and PubMed.Phenolic acids contain a carboxylic acid group in addition to the basic phenolic structure and aremainly divided into hydroxybenzoic and hydroxycinnamic acids. Hydroxybenzoic acids are basedon a C6-C1 skeleton and are often found bound to small organic acids, glycosyl moieties, or cellstructural components. Common hydroxybenzoic acids include gallic, syringic, protocatechuic, p-hydroxybenzoic, vanillic, gentistic, and salicylic acids. Hydroxycinnamic acids are based on aC6-C3 skeleton and are also often bound to other molecules such as quinic acid and glucose. Themain hydroxycinnamic acids are caffeic, p-coumaric, ferulic, and sinapic acids.

KeyWords:

phenolics; curcumin; protocatechuic; quinones; stilbenes; curcuminoids