Sesquiterpene lactones in sunflower oil

Abstract Sunflower, Helianthus annuus, is one of the world's most important oil crops and sunflower oil is esteemed for its high content of unsaturated fatty acids together with the occurrence of relatively high amounts of vitamin E and phytosterols. Reports on other secondary metabolites are rare, but recently identified bioactive sesquiterpene lactones in non-germinated sunflower seeds suggested their existence in sunflower oil. Chromatographic combined with mass spectrometric analysis now showed the presence of costunolide, dehydrocostuslactone, 8-epixanthatin and tomentosin in samples of commercially available oils and allowed quantification of the sesquiterpene lactones. Implications of these results for the use of sunflower oil in nutrition and cosmetics are discussed.