Expert assessment of the preventive potential of micronutrients in functional foodstuffs

Functional foodstuffs are defined as products that do not just provide nutrients but offer in addition a potential benefit to improve people’s health and wellbeing and/or to reduce the risks of diseases. They should be consumed as part of normal nutrition and not be offered in the form of tablets, capsules or in any other form of dietary supplements. The preventive potential of functional food depends on the micronutrient content in particular. Even though many studies support the view that functional foodstuffs help protect people’s health, assured knowledge as well as the understanding of physiologically active components are still in their early stages. On the occasion of a symposium, the International Task Force for Prevention of Cardiometabolic Diseases held a technical discussion about current research approaches around the preventive effects of functional foodstuffs the results of which were published by the Nutrition, Metabolism & Cardiovascular Diseases magazine. The focus is on the assessment of the potential of functional foodstuffs with respect to the personalised prevention of the metabolic syndrome.

Read more:
G. Assmann et al. International Task Force for Prevention of Cardiometabolic Diseases. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc. December 2014 Volume 24, Issue 12, Pages 1272–1300.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.numecd.2014.10.010