Castanea sativa Mill: A Brief Review

The use of medicinal plants has grown all over the world. Nowadays the ethnopharmacological
applications of medicinal plants are an important matter when it comes to search for new molecules
with biological activity.
Castanea sativa Mill is a species with great economic value since chestnut trees are an important
crop in the northern region of Portugal and new applications of this plant are being developed by the
pharmaceutical and food industries. Beyond its economic importance it also has beneficial effects in
human health as consequence of their biological activities namely antioxidant, antimicrobial,
antispasmodic, among others.
In this work we present a review of the main bioactive compounds that constitute the chestnut
extracts, their toxicity and their main biological activities.