Bioactive Plant Compounds for Sustainable Health

Dear Colleagues,

The impact of diet on sustainable health and wellbeing of individuals has been studied for many years, and has unravelled a plethora of complex biochemical, metabolic, and physiological mechanisms that underpin this link. In addition to the nutritional aspects of food, it has become clear that food items can contain biologically-active, non-nutritive compounds that provide specific health benefits. These compounds are phytochemicals, which are also sometimes called nutraceuticals. While some of these have made it to become mainstream drugs (e.g., metformin, reserpine), it is believed that the potential for additional candidates is extremely large. In line with these findings, an increasing demand for healthy foods that contain nutraceuticals has been observed, triggering food industry to develop and to restructure its own procedures to fulfil consumers’ desires. It is important to highlight that the definition of “nutraceuticals” is commonly confused with that of “functional foods”, as the latter category also encompasses "designer foods", which are food products formulated with higher (than natural) levels of certain bioactive compounds. Clearly it is important not only to deepen knowledge in this field, but also to clarify the existing one. Furthermore, there is a need for better understanding how bioactive ingredients in food exert their effects and to determine the specific modes of action, as also to deepen knowledge and to discover upcoming plant-food promissory matrices, always ensuring consumers’ safety by producing high quality health-promoting foods. In this Special Issue, we invite authors to submit papers/reviews in which they comment on existing food ingredients with bioactive properties, and/or to provide perspectives on novel candidates.

Dr. Natália Martins
Prof. Dr. Gertjan van Dijk
Guest Editors

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