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Transcript

Welcome back. In this lecture we will go through the significance of functional foods in management of various diseases. Now the question arises that why there is a need of functional foods. Why we need functional foods? And there are so many factors, which we can say like the life style diseases, our way of like working, and cost of healthcare are increasing day by day which stimulate our government researchers, scientists and the food industry to have these kind of products. Functional foods also have potential to improve health, well-being and reduce the major diseases like cardio-vascular diseases, cancer and osteoporosis. So it will make a positive contribution to our health and well-being.

Significance of functional foods, they help us to improve the regular stomach and colon infections like prebiotics and probiotics. And also improve the children’s life by supporting their learning capability and behavior. Overall they improve the immunity. And the functional foods they are also designed to reduce an existing health problem, such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure. Then lactose free, gluten free products are also available, that I have discussed in earlier lecture. New food products with health attributes have raised its popularity, because they are believed to offer consumer an increased ability to reduce the risk of disease.

Now health benefits of functional foods. And we categorize these health benefits in three categories like maintenance, reduction and treatment. In the maintenance side they enhance the function like gastro-intestinal health, gut microbiome like our gut microbiota, then anti-oxidants, they affect the ageing or act as a role of anti-ageing. Then improved sports performance and mental health also. In the reduction side or for a specific illness or specific deficiency disease; like calcium is very important to prevent the osteoporosis. Vitamin A is very necessary for the night blindness, then polyunsaturated fatty acids are helpful in the cardio vascular diseases. And folic acid, it is particularly required in children who have the problem in folic acid. And this is a complication that is known as Spina Bifida in which the spinal cord is not fully developed. Now the third category is the treatment or management of the illness. If we will shift the low fat products, it will solve the problem of overweight. Gluten free, it will solve the problem of celiac because it is due to the gluten content of the food product. Then low glycemic index. It will solve the problem of, it will prevent the diabetes.

Then functional foods with health benefits. Functional foods can be taken in many forms. Like some may be conventional with the bio-active compounds. And that can be identified and linked to a positive health outcomes. Some may be fortified or enhanced food, specially created to reduce the diseases risk for a certain group of people; maybe the people suffering from the cardio-vascular diseases. And the consumers can already select from a wide spectrum of food that contain functional components, like soya protein through fortification or folate fortified foods. Health benefits may result from increasing the consumption of substances already a part of an individual’s diet or from adding new substances to the human’s diet. Alternatively, food that do not naturally contain a substance can be fortified to provide consumers with a broader selection of food sources. Means we can also fortified if something is lacking that is beneficial to our health in the food product to have a particular health benefit, like calcium fortified orange juice.

Now functional foods with health benefits. There are various health benefits of the functional foods. Like fortified foods, juices with calcium fortification. Grains with folic acid fortification. They claim to reduce the problem of osteoporosis, hypertension and the folic acid content will reduce the risk of heart disease. And natural birth defect that is spina bifida, that I have discussed in earlier slide. Then enhanced foods are the, like in these kind of foods we enhance that particular component beneficial to us like beverages and salad dressings with anti-oxidants, phytosterols enriched flavored milk and phytosterol enriched fruit bar. And they are helpful to support overall growth. Overall health of the human being.

Especially it can be for the cholesterol reduction also. Then whole foods, like oats, they contain beta-glucan. And they are helpful to reduce the cholesterol. Then fruits and vegetables, they reduce the risk of certain cancers and heart diseases.

Now diabetes and functional foods. Diabetes is a very serious problem. And this is known as the lifestyle disease. And in this problem, this disease; the body cannot regulate the amount of sugar in the blood. And this is 2 type of diabetes. Like type 1 diabetes in which the pancreas stop producing or it will stop a very little amount of insulin, that is a hormone that regulate blood sugar level. And the second one that is the very serious one; diabetes in which the pancreas produces insulin, but the body is partially or completely not responding or not reacting to that insulin. This is a very important aspect like before launching any functional food in the market. We have to go through certain steps like first step is that phyto-nutrient analysis, means we correlate the particular phyto-nutrient which is beneficial for a particular type of disease. And after that we go for the pre-clinical screening. Pre-clinical screening means how it is beneficial to that particular disease. And for that we have to go through the clinical trials. Clinical trials are of two types. Invivo and Invitro. And then we come to the new food product development before launching into the market. Then this product will come to the market after passing through so many steps. Then product will come to the market, then we will go for the epidermiological studies, means survey kind of things how it is working, it is working properly or not. Whatever claims, are their, are performing or not.

Now to assess the functional foods. First is that we consume the food component. Then second step is that markers of the exposure to food component. Then the markers of the target function. And then markers of the intermediate end point. Here the word marker is coming again and again. Markers are the particular signals that indicate a particular level of that component. For example we can say if we are giving some diabetic person such kind of food which claim that it reduce the blood sugar. Then in that case when we take the sample of that particular patient regarding the blood sugar, then here blood sugar is a marker. Then we assess that marker; marker how it is like a by consuming of that particular food it is reducing that disease or not.

Then functional foods in cancer. Cancer is a very serious disease and trends the word cancer research from an American Institute for Cancer Research examined the relationship between the nutrition and cancer incidence in the large study on the global scale. And it was found that approximately 30% of the cancer cases worldwide could be prevented by changing the dietary habits. Means if we change our dietary habits, then we can prevent so many diseases that are known as the lifestyle diseases. One thing that here I would like to discuss, that these functional foods they are not the magic bullets. They are not targeting directly to the cancer. They are not targeting directly to the cardio-vascular diseases. They are targeting the different sides. And by targeting the different sides they have several possibilities. That includes they can alter in the characteristics of the tissues, cellular phenomena, they will reduce the infection and inflammation that will further lead to certain kinds of cancers. And they will also plays important role in the bioactive substances in the blood and tissues.

Here are some examples of functional foods. Oats contain Beta Glucan. Eggs with the increased omega 3 content that we can have by altering the chicken feed that we have discussed earlier. These both are beneficial to the heart health. Like then fermentation with a specific bacteria to have bioactive peptides. And this will help to improve the cholesterol levels. Then chewing gums sweetened with xylitol instead of sugar, and it will reduce or help to prevent the dental caries. Then golden rice and orange fleshed sweet potato with provitamin A, and we all know that provitamin A is very necessary for the vision or the healthy vision. Then functional food components available in the market. Various functional foods are available like soluble oat fiber, soy protein, phytosterol and stanol. And they claims the health benefits of coronary heart diseases. And these all like soluble oat fiber, soy protein and this phytosterols. They are Food and Drug Administration approved health claims. Then calcium which is very beneficial in the osteoporosis. It is also FDA approved; folate enriched foods. That is important for the neural tube defects that is spina bifida, I have told earlier. And it is also approved by FDA.

In this lecture we have discussed the role of different functional foods. How the bio-markers are essential. And what are the necessary steps that we have to go through before, like launching any functional food product in the market. And in our next lecture we will discuss functional food market in India and global market.

Thank You.