Nutraceuticals origin

Many of the extraction, concentration, and purification techniques and equipment used in preparation of nutraceuticals originated in the vegetable oils and proteins processing industries. Byproduct streams often are further purified for this market. 

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 number of compounds found in foods of plant origin have potentially protective effects, although they cannot be considered to be dietary essentials they are variously known as phytonutrients, phytoceuticals, or nutraceuticals. Such compounds include allyl sulfur compounds, flavonoids, glucosinolates, and phytoestrogens. 

The structure, therapeutic applications, dosage range, and available formulations for the major nutraceuticals are shown in Table 1. These major nutraceuticals can also be categorized according to their origin. Table 2 lists the origin of the major nutraceuticals. 

The major group of nutraceuticals are of endogenous origin, being natural products responsible for... 

The properties of natural products obtained from plants, fungi, animals, and other organisms of terrestrial or marine origin have intrigued mankind for millennia, in particular those products that exert an effect (i.e., have a particular bioactivity) on humans or other organisms. Such compounds have long been used as nutraceuticals, social elixirs, intoxicants, drugs of abuse, or as therapeutics. 

Drugs and food from natural origin play an important role in public healthcare system throughout the world. The word nutraceutical is a broad term describing foods, food ingredients, and dietary supplements that provide... 

The purity and dosage requirements of most of the nutraceuticals are not clear. They do not have the scientific basis of dose recommendation [52]. Cost is another main factor in the production of nutraceuticals. The raw materials are often very costly. Most commercially available nutraceuticals contain a mixture of compounds. Often, the non-declared and unhealthy ingredients that are non-herbal in nature and origin are present (e.g., high content of saturated fat in tortilla chips). Thus, an unhealthy food product can be marketed with the implication of a health benefit. Interferences between compounds during uptake are also not known [52, 79]. 

These are diploid ancestral wheats that include wild Einkorn (Triticum boeoticum) and cultivated Einkorn (Triticum monococcum). The uses of these wheats are resurfacing due to their potential nutraceutical properties, even though they are low yielding compared with the current commercial types. The renewed nutritional interest is due to its high protein and yellow pigment (lutein) contents. This wheat is the origin of the common wheats and Spelta (diploid). 

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