Nutraceutical is sometimes used interchangeably with the terms functional food and dietary supplement, though there are distinctions. Functional foods are foods normally consumed in the diet that have scientifically assessed health benefits. Dietary supplements are ingestible preparations purposefully added to the diet to benefit health but are not necessarily derived from foods. Nutraceuticals, on the other hand, are products with biological functions that are derived only from foods. Similar to dietary supplements, they generally are consumed in a form that resembles a medicinal product, and they usually are sold over-the-counter (OTC). These distinctions, however, are complicated by the fact that many substances fall within all three categories. For example, beta-carotene occurs naturally in fruits, vegetables, and grains but is also manufactured and sold as a dietary supplement and as a nutraceutical.
Nutraceuticals are often sold with remarkable health claims, such as being able to slow the aging process. However, these claims are problematic and difficult to substantiate. Since foods are not used in the treatment of diseases, the claim that nutraceuticals can treat disease is deemed inappropriate for a food substance.
Diverse groups of nutraceuticals
A wide range of products are marketed as nutraceuticals. These include vitamins and essential minerals, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids, and a variety of herbal products (e.g., phytoestrogens) that have diverse claims of health-promoting properties. Other examples include nutrient-supplemented, or “functionalized,” products, such as milk with added vitamin D, products designed for certain groups, such as athletes and pregnant and lactating women, and probiotic and prebiotic yogurt. (Prebiotics are nondigestible nutrients that serve as an energy source for bacteria that assist with the breakdown of food in the human digestive tract.)
Some have also considered certain genetically engineered foods to be nutraceuticals, though consumer acceptance of this type of product has been low. Modern views about what constitutes a nutraceutical are influenced heavily by the way the food, herbal medicine, and pharmaceutical markets are regulated in a given country or region and by the marketing of certain products and the claims for health benefits linked to those products.
The food-medicine interface
The relationship between food and medicine has long been of interest and was considered in many classical traditions, including those of ancient Greece and China. Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, for example, introduced the idea “food be your medicine,” a concept that has retained its significance in the more than 2,000 years since.
In the latter part of the 20th century, so-called “health foods” entered the public conscience in many countries. Scientific interest in the overlap between food and medicine was also renewed during that time, notably in the early 1980s by American anthropologists Nina Etkin and Paul J. Ross with research that reinforced the dietary significance of plants used medicinally by indigenous peoples.
Food products developed since have increasingly become functionalized and tailor-made for specific groups, such as those who are very old or very young, who are physically active, or who are affected by specific conditions. The socioeconomic significance of these products has also grown. Diets that allow for healthy aging, for example, are strongly linked with increased life expectancy and higher income.
Diet and its functional roles
In English-speaking cultures, the term diet has multiple meanings when used in a nutritional context. For example, diet is the food and drink regularly provided or consumed (the everyday nourishment) and the food consumed for a special reason, which is generally health-related. In other languages, the concept of diet may be restricted to the second meaning. In Spanish, for example, dieta refers especially to the selective use of certain components of habitual nourishment. The same is true in German, where diät refers almost exclusively to special diets that affect health.
By identifying specific health benefits of the diet and by linking these benefits to certain groups of natural compounds, researchers are able to determine whether a food serves one or more specific health-related functions. For example, a food high in fibre may contribute to the maintenance of gastrointestinal health. Thus, the concept of nutraceuticals reinforces a health-related aspect within the idea of diet as everyday nourishment, and more specifically, it serves to functionalize food. Such modern views about health and diet are largely outcomes of the scientific revolution of the 17th and 18th centuries. In the centuries that followed, food increasingly came to be analyzed and ultimately separated into its functional elements (e.g., proteins, fats, and micronutrients), all of which are now understood to contribute to health.
Nutraceuticals are key to the scientific concept of personalized diet, in which factors such as age, body composition, nutritional status, and physical activity are considered alongside genetic constitution when assessing an individual’s nutritional needs. This area of research is closely linked to nutrigenetics. Nutrigenetics is concerned primarily with the interaction between an individual’s genes and that individual’s diet; when applied to the human genome generally, the field is known as nutrigenomics (or nutritional genomics). Nutrigenetics and nutrigenomics can be used to guide decisions regarding the incorporation of nutraceuticals into personalized diets. This is valuable especially in helping to overcome specific nutrient deficits associated with genetic anomalies.
The emergence of nutrigenetics and nutrigenomics has provided enormous opportunity for the translation of scientific advance into consumer benefits. Indeed, knowledge of human dietary needs has grown tremendously since the beginning of the 20th century, and scientists have been working to refine their understanding of the nutrigenomic aspects of food. The continued study of the impact of human genetic makeup on food and of the effects of food constituents on gene expression not only strengthens the genetic basis for personalized diets but also can be used to help consumers make informed decisions about nutraceutical purchases.
Nutraceuticals and a healthy diet
A key criticism of nutraceuticals is related to their potential use as a substitute for a healthy diet or lifestyle. As a case in point, in the early 21st century, nutraceutical use was deemed to be ineffective in preventing obesity. Furthermore, people can improve their diets by other means, such as by increasing fruit and vegetable intake. However, it is unclear what specific contribution is made by making these changes, such as whether more fruit in the diet translates to higher levels of disease-fighting antioxidant compounds in the body.
With humans having evolved as a species that consumes a very diverse diet, the key may be to aim for such diversity in consumption. Adding nutraceuticals to the diet may be one way by which some people succeed in developing a healthy diet. However, adding nutraceuticals to the diet is not as straightforward as it might seem. The development and use of nutraceuticals are embedded within a broader debate about how people adapt their food intake in the context of changing environmental conditions and lifestyles and increasing globalized exchange of ideas and products.
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Food, substance consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, fat, and other nutrients used in the body of an organism to sustain growth and vital processes and to furnish energy. The absorption and utilization of food by the body is fundamental to nutrition and is facilitated by digestion. Plants, which convert solar…
Disease, any harmful deviation from the normal structural or functional state of an organism, generally associated with certain signs and symptoms and differing in nature from physical injury. A diseased organism commonly exhibits signs or symptoms indicative of its abnormal state. Thus, the normal condition of an organism must be…
Dietary supplement, any vitamin, mineral, herbal product, or other ingestible preparation that is added to the diet to benefit health. Dietary supplements are used worldwide and represent a broad category of ingestible products that are distinguishable…
Fruit, the fleshy or dry ripened ovary of a flowering plant, enclosing the seed or seeds. Thus, apricots, bananas, and grapes, as well as bean pods, corn grains, tomatoes, cucumbers, and (in their shells) acorns and almonds, are all technically fruits. Popularly, however, the term is restricted to the ripened…