Functional Foods: Exploring the Health Benefits of Bioactive Compounds

Dear Colleagues,

In this Special Issue, we call for original research, short communications, and review articles comprehensively exploring and summarizing the potential of functional foods in human nutrition. We invite you to submit papers regarding the health benefits of foods containing bioactive compounds and/or the potential of specific products to reduce the risk of chronic disease beyond basic nutrition.

Natural dietary compounds, defined as food components, have been used for a long time and can be easily incorporated into an individual’s everyday diet with little effort. Growing evidence has shown that functional foods may contribute to reducing the prevalence of coronary heart diseases, metabolic disorders, inflammation, and even cancer. Consumers’ acceptance of functional foods is increasing, and their interest in the relationship between food and quality of life is also growing.

This Special Issue is dedicated to exploring the latest findings on the role of well-characterized bioactive compounds such as carotenoids, vitamins, proteins, fatty acids, and plant sterols, as well as fermented food, fiber, probiotics, and prebiotics. Papers may comprise various aspects of novel and tailored functional foods in human nutrition.

The physiological benefits of bioactive compounds in functional foods have been demonstrated to have multiple mechanisms of action, including regulation of cell signaling, gene expression, balancing of oxidative stress, modulation of the inflammation response, endocrine system functioning, and many others. Therefore, innovative investigation methods related to nutritional problems using epigenetics, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and bioinformatics approaches are also appreciated. Authors are invited to submit studies performed using animal models or in vitro experiments if the relevance of these results to the human model is discussed. We are also interested in studies demonstrating the bioavailability and safety aspects of functional foods.

Dr. Małgorzata Tyszka-Czochara
Guest Editor

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-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nutrients 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.