Abstract

A REVIEW ON NUTRACEUTICALS AND ITS ROLE IN TREATMENT OF DISEASE

S. A. Dighe*, R. S. Nalkar and S. B. Kakad

Abstract

The term “nutraceutical” combines two words nutrients i.e. nourishing food components & pharmaceutical i.e. a medical drug. Nutraceuticals are used to describe any product which is obtained from food sources that mainly have extra health benefits in addition to essential nutritional values found into foods. The philosophy behind nutraceuticals is to specialize in prevention, consistent with the old saying by a Greek physician Hippocrates, Father of Medicine who said that “let food be your medicine”. Nutraceuticals are also called as medical foods, designer foods, phytochemicals, functional foods and nutritional supplements, which are mainly found in our day to day food products. The primary reasons for the growth of the nutraceutical market worldwide are the current population and the health trends. The food products which are used as nutraceuticals mainly consists as dietary fiber, prebiotics, probiotics, polyunsaturated fatty acids, antioxidants and other various kinds of herbal/ natural foods. These nutraceuticals help to withstand, various types of health problems likewise obesity, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, osteoporosis, arthritis, diabetes, cholesterol etc. The wheel of time having gone a full circle, today the important role of diet in disease prevention is being increasingly realized in current scientific thinking as well that also played a role in triggering the world‟s belief in this. Over the years nutraceuticals have attracted considerable interest thanks to their potential nutritional, safety and therapeutic effects.

Keywords: Dietary fiber, Probiotics, Prebiotics, Polyphenols, Spices, Human diet.