HNSC 4540 Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals Future Trends Report

This report examines the future of functional foods and nutraceuticals, addressing the question of whether foods can forestall aging. It explores various aspects, including analytical test methods, direct versus indirect antioxidants, dietary patterns versus nutrition guidelines, delivery systems, processing technology, and nutrigenomics. The report emphasizes the importance of accurate analytical methods to prevent side effects and suggests focusing on indirect antioxidants to ensure long-term benefits. It also highlights the need for the industry to understand population dietary patterns, improve delivery systems, adopt modern processing technology, and utilize nutrigenomics to personalize food solutions. The report concludes that functional foods offer significant health benefits, and industries should adapt to meet future demands and promote healthy lifestyles. The report also acknowledges the growth in consumption of functional foods and the importance of industry adapting to cater to future needs.

Running head: FUNCTIONAL FOODS AND NUTRACEUTICALS
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Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals
Also known as nutraceuticals, functional foods are known to be very nutritious and have
been linked with a couple of health benefits. Students across the globe have come up with
several definitions of functional foods. However, the most appropriate definition state that they
are food ingredients gives health benefits that tend to go beyond their nutritional value.
Functional foods protect against diseases, promote growth and development, and also prevent
nutrient illnesses. Functional foods are divided into two groups, i.e., conventional and modified
foods. The difference between these two groups is that conventional foods are natural and are
rich in crucial nutrients such as antioxidants, minerals as well as vitamins. On the other hand,
modified foods are those that have been fortified with additional nutrients to increase the health
benefits of the foods.
Several functional foods are said to be rich in antioxidants. Antioxidants are substances
that protect an individual's body from harmful molecules that are called free radicals. Free
radicals can gather and promote oxidative stress. Oxidative stress leads to the damage of an
individual's DNA as well as other critical structures in the body cells. These substances also help
in inhibiting oxidation, and thus stored food can go for a required duration without going bad.
Consumption of foods rich in antioxidants can facilitate the increase individual's blood
antioxidant levels that not only help in fighting oxidative stress but also helps in the reduction of
risk of chronic diseases.
Fortified foods have vitamins, and minerals added to them. Biologically, vitamins are
known to prevent diseases. This makes fortified foods help the body in the prevention of
diseases. For instance, vitamin D is added to milk during the manufacture of milk; thus, the
continuous uptake of milk may give an individual's body the ability to fight and prevent rickets
as well as osteoporosis. Moreover, scientists have considered fruits and vegetables to be
functional foods since they can prevent as well as reducing diseases (Berner et al. 2014). Foods
that are fermented contain healthy bacteria known as probiotics. This bacterial is beneficial in
digestion as it helps with symptoms of constipation and diarrhea. This is why these foods have
been considered to be functional foods.
Many people across the globe have been brought into awareness about the health
importance of nutraceuticals. As a result, this has led to much consumption of these foods as
compared to other categories of foods. For this reason, functional foods have remained the
number one priority to industries and companies that deal with food production (Laparra and
Sanz 2010). It has been the number one food; companies have developed competition making the
prices relatively lower. Continued consumption of these foods, the industry should try to
accommodate the future of these foods to ensure a good flow of its essentials, thus making sure
functional foods will never get off the market.

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Direction Industries Needs to Go in the Future of Functional Foods
To accommodate the future needs of functional foods, one of the most crucial things industry
can keep into account is the analytical test methods they apply. These methods should be
accurate to prevent side effects on the people that consume functional foods. The ways an
industry uses should be efficient and capable of balancing the constituents that are used in the
processing of these foods. Some of the methods recommended by health experts may include
chromatography, nuclear magnet resonance, mass spectrometry, capillary electrophoresis, and
infrared spectroscopy (Stoica et al. 2016). These methods ensure the correct quality assessment
of these foods.
Direct versus Indirect Antioxidants
Antioxidants are further divided into two types i.e., direct and indirect antioxidants. The
difference between these two types is that direct antioxidants are vitamins and minerals that we
consume from foods and supplements and are capable of neutralizing free radicals by attaching
directly to the free radical while indirect antioxidants do not bind. Instead, they boost natural
antioxidant enzymes in the body. Moreover, direct antioxidants have a limited lifespan, unlike
indirect antioxidants that continue to boost the body for a long term (Reiter et al. 2016). Having
that summary, it is wise to suggest that the industry should use indirect antioxidants than the
direct antioxidants. This is to ensure the future in the functional foods is promised.
Dietary Patterns of Populations verses Nutrition Guideline
For the industry to maintain its rapport based on the future of functional foods, it should be able
to interpret dietary patterns of the population rather than nutritional guidelines. For an industry to
prosper in this food sector, it should focus more on dietary patterns of the people it targets.
However, it should also be able to give the population nutrition guidelines to keep the population
updated on the latest food guidelines. By so doing, since the functional foods will be forever
considered the best due to its proven advantages, the community will be able to read the
guidelines and try to adhere to them. By subscribing to them, the production of functional foods
will increase hence been consumed forever.
Delivery Systems
One of the principal acts of industries is the delivery systems. An industry will with excellent
delivery services sells more than one without. Functional food industries are encouraged to
develop their delivery systems to cater to the future in the supply of these foods. This is because
statistics have shown steady growth in the consumption of functional foods up to 2020. To cater

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to the future needs of functional foods, the industry is advised to improve on delivery systems as
the consumption of these foods is rising every year. This will enable the industry to reach more
people who need these foods.
Processing Technology
Due to the rapid increase in the consumption of functional foods, the industry needs to
adopt modern processing technology that is efficient and can produce foods in large numbers.
This will enable the industry to meet future expectations of the functional foods. These
processing technologies should process an extensive amount of food in a short time; this will
allow it to serve its population with enough functional foods. Moreover, quality foods will be
produced as the industry has adopted the best technology in the current world that is providing
quality functional foods. This is because as the years go by, the technology is rapidly improving,
making it better each day.
Nutrigenomics
Nutrigenomics aims at providing a molecular understanding of how chemicals in our
diets affect the health of an individual by changing the expression of genes and the structure of
the genome of an individual. The bottom line of this is that influence of diet on health depends
on personal genetic make-up (Simopoulos 2010). For the industry to cater to the future, it should
use chemicals that suit a good number of people. This is to make sure everyone can feed on their
products in the future.
To conclude, people should adopt the habit of taking functional foods over other types of
food. This is because functional foods have several health benefits that may make an individual
live a healthy life and thus living for long. Industries that deal with functional foods are advised
to grow in the above-discussed ways to cater to the changes that the future may bring forth.
Health experts have favored these industries since health advice people to consume more of
functional foods. Some patients suffering from various complicated diseases have been directed
to consume functional foods and avoid other types of foods to prolong their lives.

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References
Berner, L. A., Keast, D. R., Bailey, R. L., & Dwyer, J. T. (2014). Fortified foods are major
contributors to nutrient intakes in diets of US children and adolescents. Journal of the
Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 114(7), 1009-1022.
Laparra, J. M., & Sanz, Y. (2010). Interactions of gut microbiota with functional food
components and nutraceuticals. Pharmacological Research, 61(3), 219-225.
Reiter, R. J., Mayo, J. C., Tan, D. X., Sainz, R. M., Alatorre‐Jimenez, M., & Qin, L. (2016).
Melatonin as an antioxidant: under promises but over-delivers. Journal of pineal research,
61(3), 253-278.
Simopoulos, A. P. (2010). Nutrigenetics/nutrigenomics. Annual review of public health, 31, 53-
68.
Stoica, R. M., Moscovici, M., Tomulescu, C., & Băbeanu, N. (2016). Extraction and analytical
methods of capsaicinoids-a review. Scientific Bulletin. Series F. Biotechnologies, 20, 93-
98.