Edible-Medicinal Foods: Functional Food Innovation and Mechanistic Health Efficacy Evaluation
A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Nutraceuticals, Functional Foods, and Novel Foods".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 9 July 2026 | Viewed by 347
Special Issue Editors
Interests: probiotics; functional food; nutrition; bioactive peptides
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: functional foods; aquatic products; bioactive peptides
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The concept of edible-medicinal foods stands as a cornerstone of traditional medicine, embodying the profound principle that numerous foods inherently possess therapeutic properties. As global healthcare paradigms shift decisively toward prevention and personalized nutrition, modern advancements in food science, nutrigenomics, and systems biology now enable rigorous scientific validation of these time-honored resources. This Special Issue aims to establish a comprehensive international platform that bridges ancient wisdom with cutting-edge innovations, welcoming original research articles and systematic reviews focusing on the following themes: (1) identification and mechanistic elucidation of bioactive compounds (e.g., peptides, polyphenols, flavonoids, polysaccharides) derived from edible-medicinal plant and animal resources; (2) probiotic fermentation and biotransformation mechanisms, including systematic metabolic pathway analysis, degradation of antinutritional factors, and structure–function modifications of bioactive components; (3) health-promoting effects and underlying molecular mechanisms in metabolic and inflammatory conditions, validated through standardized disease models and multi-omics approaches; (4) innovative processing technologies and formulation strategies for edible-medicinal food development; (5) in vitro, in vivo, and clinical efficacy evaluation models for functional validation; (6) interactions between edible-medicinal ingredients and gut microbiota, and the regulatory roles they play in metabolism and immunity; (7) standardization, quality control systems, and safety assessment of edible-medicinal foods; (8) functional effects such as regulation of glucose/lipid metabolism, anti-inflammation, and antiaging; and (9) industrial application practices, market trends, and regulatory frameworks for edible-medicinal functional foods. We warmly invite scholars worldwide to contribute their high-quality research to help advance this interdisciplinary field, fostering synergies between traditional knowledge and modern science.
Dr. Qi Wang
Prof. Dr. Yafeng Zheng
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- medicinal and edible homology
- functional food innovation
- health efficacy evaluation
- bioactive compounds
- gut health
- immunomodulation
- standardization
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