Mountain Research Centre (CIMO), ESA, Polytechnic Institute of Braganca, Braganca, Portugal.
Laboratory of Separation and Reaction Engineering (LSRE), Associate Laboratory LSRE/LCM, IPB, Braganca, Portugal.
Curr Pharm Des. 2017;23(19):2787-2806. doi: 10.2174/1381612822666161227153906.
Nowadays, the functional foods represent one the most promising, interesting and innovative areas in the food industry. Various components are being added to foods in order to render them functional.
One example of these components are plant naturally occurring phenolic compounds, which are associated with a high antioxidant capacity and thus with benefits in relation to human health.
However, despite the huge number of scientific studies and patents on this topic and their natural presence in foods, namely in the ones from plant origin, there are still few marketable products enriched with these compounds. The commercialization of this type of functional products needs to go through various regulations, proving that they are safe and present the ascribed health benefits, conquering the target audience. In this review the growing interest of industry and consumers' appetence for functional foods and nutraceuticals is highlighted, focusing especially on phenolic compounds.
Although several published works show the multitude of bioactive properties of these compounds, ensuring their use as bioactive ingredients in food, they present inherent stability issues needing to be solved. However, considerable research is presently ongoing to overcome this problem, making viable the development of new products to be launched in the market.
如今，功能性食品是食品工业中最有前途、最有趣和最具创新性的领域之一。为了使食品具有功能性，各种成分被添加到食品中。
这些成分的一个例子是植物中天然存在的酚类化合物，它们具有很高的抗氧化能力，因此对人类健康有益。
然而，尽管关于这个主题有大量的科学研究和专利，并且这些化合物在食物中天然存在，特别是在植物源性食物中，仍然只有少数富含这些化合物的商业化功能性产品。这类功能性产品的商业化需要经过各种法规的检验，证明它们是安全的，并具有所声称的健康益处，从而赢得目标受众。在这篇综述中，强调了行业和消费者对功能性食品和营养保健品日益增长的兴趣，特别是对酚类化合物的兴趣。
尽管有许多已发表的研究工作表明这些化合物具有多种生物活性特性，确保了它们作为食品中的生物活性成分的使用，但它们存在固有稳定性问题，需要解决。然而，目前正在进行大量研究来克服这个问题，使开发新的产品并推向市场成为可能。
