Role of Nutraceuticals in Health and disease prevention: A review

Abstract

The term nutraceutical was originally defined by Dr. Stephen L. De Felice, founder and chairman of the Foundation of Innovation Medicine (FIM), Crawford, New Jersey. About 2000 years ago, Hippocrates correctly emphasized "Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food". Nutraceuticals are medicinal foods that play a role in maintaining well being, enhancing health, modulating immunity and thereby preventing as well as treating specific diseases. Thus the field of nutraceutical can be envisioned as one of the missing blocks in the health benefit of an individual. Probiotics are ingested for their purported positive advantages in the digestive tract and/or systemic area like the liver, brain, vagina or blood stream. Antioxidants are very essential in the treatment of almost all diseases because most chronic diseases carry with them a great pact of oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is accelerated by the ageing process along with lack of dietary antioxidants. Flavonoids have anti-cancerous properties by acting as antioxidants. Phytochemicals have specific actions and can be used variously for e.g. as antioxidants and have a positive effect on health. Recently, much attention has been given to phytochemicals that possess cancer preventive properties. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) have been shown to decrease the production of inflammatory eicosanoids, cytokines and reactive oxygen species, possess immunomodulatory effects and attenuate inflammatory diseases. With the evolution of "Smart Nutraceuticals", a Futuristic "Physician's Desk Reference" would contain information on individual genetic profiles to be matched with specific nutritional interventions as well. This would be a vast improvement over current nutritional recommendations which being too generalized are reported to benefit only 60% of population.