Functional Foods

CONTENTS
 Background
 Introduction
 Functional food as nutraceuticals
 Cereals as functional food
 Legumes as functional food
 Vegetables as functional food
 Fruits as functional food
 Probiotics as functional food
 Functional food and fortification
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 Conclusion
BACKGROUND
 Humans for centuries have attributed to diet and foods as a
functional role in health.
 Understanding of the relationships between food,
physiological function and disease have progressed in recent
years, particularly over the past decade.
 Growing interest in the role that nutrition plays in our state of
well being has led to the development and marketing of a
growing spectrum of products called “nutraceuticals” and
“functional foods.”
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INTRODUCTION
 A functional food is a food given an
additional function.
 "Functional Food is a Natural or processed food that
contains known biologically-active compounds which
when in defined quantitative and qualitative amounts
provides a clinically proven and documented health
benefit.
 Functional foods includes processed food or foods fortified
with health-promoting additives, like "vitamin-enriched"
products.
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FUNCTIONAL FOODS AS
NUTRACEUTICALS
 Nutraceuticals are functional foods which d0nt only provide
mere health benefits but helps in effective prevention and
treatment of different diseases.
 Nutraceuticals have been claimed to have a physiological
benefit or provide protection against the following diseases:-
 Cardiovascular agents
 Antiobese agents
 Antidiabetics
 Anticancer agents
 Immune boosters
 Chronic inflammatory disorders
 Degenerative diseases
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CONCEPT OF FUNCTIONAL FOODS
 The “functional food” concept was developed in
 Japan at the early 1980s and as “food for
 specified health use (FOSHU)” was established in 1991.
 Defined as “any food or ingredient that has a positive
impact on an individual‟s health, physical performance, or
state of mind, in addition to its nutritive value”.
 Should be naturally occurring, can be consumed as part
of the daily diet, and when ingested should enhance or
regulate a particular biological process or mechanism to
prevent or control specific diseases.

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CONCEPT OF NUTRACEUTICAL
FOODS

 Dr Stephen DeFelice, founder and chairman of the Foundation

for Innovation in Medicine located in Cranford, New Jersey,
coined the term
"Nutraceutical“ from "Nutrition" and
"Pharmaceutical" in 1989,
 defined as „a food or part of food, that provides medical or
health benefits, including the prevention and treatment of
disease.
 Nutraceuticals are natural bioactive, chemical compounds
that have health promoting, disease preventing or medicinal
properties. 7
 components that not only maintain, support, and normalize
any physiological or metabolic function, but can also
potentiate, antagonize, or otherwise modify physiological or
metabolic functions.
 non-specific biological therapies, used to promote wellness,
prevent malignant processes and control symptoms.

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CEREALS AS FUNCTIONAL FOOD

 In recent years, cereals and their

ingredients are accepted as functional
foods as they provide dietary fibre,
proteins, energy, vitamins, minerals,
antioxidants etc.
 Most common cereal based
functional foods and nutraceuticals:
wheat, barley, buckwheat, oat,
brown rice

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 The outer bran layer of cereals is rich in B vitamins and
phytonutrients such as flavonoids and indoles, along with a
small amount of protein. The endosperm is predominantly
carbohydrate, and the germ layer is concentrated with minerals
such as iron and zinc, along with the antioxidant vitamin E.

 Preventing cancer and CVDs, reducing tumour incidence,

reducing blood pressure, risk of heart disease, cholesterol
and fat absorption rate, delaying gastric emptying, providing
gastrointestinal health- protective effects of cereals.
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BUCKWHEAT
 Cholesterol reducing effects, antihypertension effects,
improve constipation and obesity conditions
 Approved as antihaemorrhagic and
hypotensive drug
 Used against circulatory disorders, and as
vasculoprotector, known to have anti- inflammatory
properties
 Antioxidative properties

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 LEGUMES AS FUNCTIONAL
FOODS

 Pulses and legumes have been

recognized as part of functional foods.
 Pulses are the main source of protein
and besides these, it is also good
sources of vitamins, minerals, omega-3
fatty acids and dietary fibre or non-
starch polysaccharides (NSP).
 contain non-nutrient bioactive
phytochemicals that have health-
promoting and disease- preventing
properties.
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 Non nutritive compounds in
legumes are non-starch
polysaccharides (NSP),
phytosterols, saponins, isoflavones,
a class of phytoestrogens, phenolic
compounds and antioxidants such
as tocopherols and flavonoids.

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 demand for bean products is growing because of the
presence of several health-promoting compounds in edible
bean products known as saponins which are naturally
occurring compounds widely distributed in all cells of
legume plants
 saponins have the ability to:
 Help protect the human body against cancers
 Lower cholesterol
 Lower blood glucose responses

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SOYBEANS
 In 1999, FDA approved a health claim for the
cholesterol-lowering properties of soy protein.
 American Heart Association (AHA) recommended that
patients with elevated cholesterol should include soy protein
foods in their diets.
 Soy has phytoestrogens called isoflavones.
 Soy isoflavones are believed to play a role in prostate
cancer, where supplementation with isoflavones has
shown a reduction in prostate cancer risk in studies.
 Soy isoflavones, and possibly soy proteins as well, are believed
to play a role in bone health.
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 There is also the biologically active non-isoflavone component
of soy that has received much attention in past years– soy
protein.

 The protein part is believed to be responsible for the

additional benefits seen from soy consumption, which are:
 Cholesterol-lowering effects
 Blood pressure-lowering effects
 Reduction of cancer risks
 Favorable effects on kidney function

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VEGETABLES AS FUNCTIONAL
FOOD
 Vegetables are rich in fiber, vitamins, minerals,
carotene, pigments, flavonoids, all of which are
important for maintaining our health and prevention
and/or treatment of various diseases.
 Low in calorific value, yet rich in vital
components

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 TOMATOES
 Lycopene is the pigment principally responsible for the deep-red
color of ripe tomato fruits and tomato products.
 Consumption of tomatoes and tomato products containing
lycopene have been shown to be associated with decreased
risk of chronic diseases like cancer and cardiovascular
diseases in several studies.
 Tomato paste and other processed tomato products are even
more effective than fresh tomatoes in preventing prostate cancer.
 This is because processing converts much of the trans-form of
lycopene found in fresh tomatoes into the cis-form, which is much
more readily taken up in

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 The evidence suggests that the anti-proliferative properties of
lycopene may extend it‟s effects to other types of cancer,
beyond just that of prostate cancer, preventing heart disease,
inhibits cholesterol synthesis and enhances the breakdown of
the bad cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL).

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FRUITS AS FUNCTIONAL
FOODS
 Fruits are nature‟s wonderful gift to mankind; indeed,
medicines packed with vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants and
many phyto-nutrients.
 Fruits are low in calories and fat and provide plenty of soluble
dietary fibers which consequently helps in prevention of
chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes, CVDs,hypertension etc.
 Fruits contain many anti-oxidants like poly- phenolic
flavonoids, vitamin-C, and anthocyanin offer protection
against aging, infections and some diseases like
Alzheimer's disease, colon cancers, weak bones
(osteoporosis)
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MANGO
 Mango fruit is rich in pre-biotic dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals,
and poly-phenolic flavonoid antioxidant compounds.
 Mango fruit is an excellent source of Vitamin- A,vitamin-B6
(pyridoxine), vitamin-C and vitamin- E and flavonoids like
beta-carotene, alpha- carotene, andbeta-cryptoxanthin.
 Consumption of mango is essential for maintenance of healthyskin,
healthy vision, prevention of CVDs and cancer.
 Fresh mango is a rich source of potassium which is an important
component of cell and body fluids that helps controlling heart rate
and blood pressure.

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PROBIOTICS AS FUNCTIONAL
FOOD
 Probiotics which means for life in Greek, is one of the approach to
inhibit harmful m/os in our body and is widely used as functional
foods.
 Probiotic approach involves the consumption of live bacterial
cells mainly lactic acid producing bacteria(Lactobacillus or
Bifidobacterium genera ) in foods or dietary supplements.
 Probiotic yoghurt are known to exert +ve response towards
lactose-intolerant people.
 Probiotics are known to exerts many health benefits beyond
inherent general nutrition. Some of them are
:-
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 lowering of blood pressure
 Stimulants of immune systems
 Lowering of blood lipid(obesity , CVDs etc).
 Increases calcium absorption from the intestine.
 Lowering of harmful enzyme activities of colonic
bacteria.
 Decreases carcinogenicity.

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FUNCTIONAL FOOD AND FORTIFICATION

 Foods are fortified and enriched with different essential

ingredients to make it functionally bioactive for
promoting health status of consumer
 Products considered functional generally do not include
products where fortification has been done to meet
government regulations and the change is not recorded on
the label as a significant addition ("invisible
fortification").
 Some of the fortified food used as functional food and
their health benefits :-

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 Juices with calcium reduces risk of osteoporosis and
reduces hypertension
 Grains with folic acid reduces risk of heart disease and
neural tube birth defects.
 Infant formulas with iron reduces risk of iron deficiency.
 Grains with added fiber reduces risk of certain cancers and
heart disease; reduces cholesterol and constipation; increases
blood-glucose control
 Juices with added fiber reduces risk of certain cancers and
heart disease; reduces cholesterol, hypertension, and
constipation.
 Foods containing sugar alcohols in place of sugar reduces risk
of tooth decay.

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CONCLUSION
 Functional food offers great potential to improve health
and/or help prevent certain diseases when taken as part of
balanced diet and healthy lifestyle.
 Thus, a functional food for one consumer can act as a
nutraceutical for another consumer.
 Many food pdts containing components with health benefits
are being incorporated with many other beneficial
components for desirable physiological change.

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 Functional foods are on peak demands due to increasing
consumer awareness for healthy living, ageing
population, increasing health care cost, advancing
scientific evidence that diet can affect on prevalence and
progression of disease.
 Although the dangerous effects of many foods like soy,
honey mustn‟t be overlooked; nutraceuticals and
functional foods should be taken under proper
supervision of nutritionist or other medical assistant if
possible.

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THANK YOU
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