Review on Discovery and Development of Novel Phytochemicals Which can be Used in Functional Foods

Yen-Chun Koh, Min-Hsiung Pan*

Institute of Food Sciences and Technology, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan.

Corresponding author Email: mhpan@ntu.edu.tw

Phytochemicals intake has become a novel trend of prevention of diseases or medication due to their marvelous health benefits discovered for decades. The incidence of different diseases are elevated rapidly and phytochemicals have been found to be a promising intervention as chemoprevention strategy or to be involved in therapeutic compounds in either single therapy or combined therapy with developed drugs to reduce dosage or usage, with low cost and side effect consideration. The preventive and therapeutic effects of phytochemicals may include antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, anti-obesity and metabolic syndromes, organs- and neuro-protection, gut micro biota modification and circadian rhythm realignment. Undeniable, the underlying mechanisms and major targets in these preventive or medical actions may be various and much more different from each other due to specific structure and functional groups. Therefore, research on the phytochemicals is imperative to clarify the role, suitability, limitation, and the biological availability. In this review, the researchers briefly summarize some recent studies focused on the potential ameliorative effects of selected dietary bioactive compound on different diseases, in order to provide the primary summary of these novel compounds to be involved in the human life style and eating habits.

Anti-obesity; Anti-oxidation; Anti-inflammation; Anti-carcinogenesis; Epigenetic modification; Phase 2 enzymes; Phytochemicals.

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