Nutraceuticals and Nutritional Supplements

The term nutraceutical - a portmanteau of nutrition and pharmaceutical - can refer to any supplement, health product, or formulated food intended to provide prevention against chronic disease or promote general well-being. In this sense, they are often considered similar to supplements. Both of these categories have current and potential future utility for industrial-scale algal production of wild-type and/or engineered strains. 

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Handbook of Nutraceuticals and Nutritional Supplements and Pharmaceuticals, Robert E. C. Wildman... 

While poisonous plants on grazing lands have a significant impact on livestock production throughout the world, the natural toxins (secondary metabolites) in the plant may have multiple and diverse functions, not only for the plant world but also for the benefit of mankind. Many current pharmaceuticals have been chemically optimized from natural toxins of plant origin. New plant compounds and familiar compounds with renewed interest, e.g., nutraceuticals, herbal preparations, nutritional supplements, etc, are increasingly finding their value in human nutrition and health. 

A marine nutraceutical is defined as a marine-derived substance that can be used as a dietary supplement or a food ingredient that provides a medicinal or health benefit beyond basic nutrition [Barrow, C.. and F. Shahidi (2008). Marine Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods. CRC Press. 494 pp.] Cosmoceuticals are cosmetic products with drug-like benefits conferred by ingredients such as vitamins, phytochemicals, enzymes, antioxidants, and essential oils. 

Lipid nutritional supplements have been in use before the term nutraceutical was coined. Products such as fish oils, shark cartilage, shark liver oil, and vitamins have been in the market since the beginning of the twentieth century. Some of the health claims of these products lacked strict scientific documentation in the past, and their curative properties were mostly anecdotal. However, today there is a better understanding of the biological properties of lipids and their application has extended to combined pharmaceutical and cosmetic fields such as disease prevention and treatment, excipients and coadjuvants, frawi-dermal carriers, and skin emolliency agents. This has led to the development of bioactive cosmetic and pharmaceutical products whose name has recently been coined as cosmeceuticals. 

The applications of liposomes in foods fulfill similar requirements to their applications in pharmaceuticals, and have been focused in the following categories formulation aid, processing, preservation, stabilizer, nutritional supplement, and nutraceutical carrier. 

Given the broad spectrum and the potent which is antioxidative in nature, besides being a good antioxidant in lipids, canolol can effectively be used as a dietary supplement in combating oxidative stress in living organisms. Canolol, as a constituent of canola/rapeseed oil, has already been residual mostly in crude oils. In this context, it can be presumed well that enriching oils with canolol will benefit the value of foods. Nevertheless, to further substantiate its claim, in disease and nutrition, human clinical trials would be necessary. If human trials are in line to the in vitro and in vivo studies, canolol can be positioned as a new powerful nutraceutical and hit the market in future. 

By definition, a nutraceutical (derived from the term nutritional pharmaceutical ) is a foodstuff (fortified food or dietary supplement) that is held to provide health or medical benefits in addition to its basic nutritional value [1], Nutraceuticals derived from botanicals deliver a concentrated form of presumed bioactive agents from plants that are not generally part of the food supply. The term nutraceutical has no regulatory definition. Similarly, functional foods, as defined by the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), are foods that by virtue of physiologically active food components, provide health benefits beyond basic nutrition [2], For the purposes of this review, these two terms will be differentiated by the form in which they are consumed. Nutraceuticals refers to dietary supplements most often found in pill or capsule form functional foods are ingested as part of a normal food pattern. Both are intended to provide beneficial effects beyond their nutritional value, and contribute to an improved state of health and/or reduction of risk of disease. 

The term nutraceutical, coined in 1989 by Stephen DeFelice, arises from combination of two words, nutrition and pharmaceutical, and defines food or food products that can provide medical and health benefits, including prevention and treatment of disease. Whole grains, beans, and herbs are known to include natural products with therapeutic potential, but fruits and vegetables are their main natural source. Edible mushrooms have also been reported to have medicinal properties [8,9]. Fortified foods, dietary supplements, herbal products, genetically engineered foods, and processed products such as cereals, soups, and beverages are considered nutraceuticals, even when in most cases bioactive components have not been scientifically standardized [10]. 

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