Dear Colleagues,

Several bioactive compounds and nutrients in foods and food by-products have physiological properties that are beneficial for human health. Indeed, agricultural and food waste management is a great challenge for global security and environmental governance, directly linked with global competitiveness, increasing population, and other economic related factors. Under the European 2020 growth strategy launched in 2010, Europe has set itself the goal of shifting from linear to circular models of production and consumption. This important issue needs advanced efficient alternatives other that landfilling or composting, in order to maximize the value derived from such an important waste source. The food waste, including both edible food and inedible parts, has been estimated in Europe to be 88 million tonnes (9 million tonnes comes from primary production), costing around 143 billion euros.

In the last decade, increasing attention has been devoted to the recycling of functional ingredients from fruit and vegetable by-products. From the perspective of bio sustainable development and renewable resource technologies, by-products and waste represent a relatively cheap source of material suitable for bioactive molecules production, which would reduce both the amount of waste and the related costs of disposal, while producing added-value nutritional products. While nutrients typically have a clear definition with established levels of recommended intakes, bioactive compounds lack such a definition. There is well-established evidence of the pharmacological properties of these bioactive compounds that render them therapeutically effective in chronic inflammatory diseases such as cardiovascular disease, Crohn, and IBD. In addition, a large amount of information in the literature confirms that nutraceuticals have chemopreventive activity, as suggested by epidemiologic and animal model studies. Their ability to reduce cancer incidence in these studies is likely related to apoptosis.

In this Special Issue, we invite investigators to contribute original research articles reporting data from both experimental and clinical studies, as well as review articles, that provide a better understanding of the effects of nutraceuticals and phytochemicals on cardiometabolic disorders, inflammatory intestinal diseases, and cancer linked to apoptosis, as well as their applications in cosmetic field. Since there has recently been great social and environmental interest in the efficient reuse of agriculture waste co- and by-products, which are often rich in bioactive compounds, papers related to the identification and recovery of such compounds are also encouraged.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• The evaluation of the potential of using nutraceuticals as chemopreventive reagents, or in cardiometabolic and intestinal disorders, or in cosmetic field, by in vitro and in vivo (including studies in human) studies, including the safety, cellular, and molecular mechanisms underlying apoptosis. 3D cell models will also be accepted.
• High-performance analytical methods suitable for the extraction and purification of the natural compounds from functional foods, dietary supplements, and herbs, for their stability and the study of the bioavailability in vitro and/or in vivo in biological fluids;
• Bioanalytical methods to determine the biological and toxicological effects of these substances and their effect on the management of cancer and cardiometabolic and intestinal disorders, and in the cosmetic field;
• The study of the physico- chemical properties of these compounds to develop new formulations that help in ameliorating oxidative stress-induced inflammatory diseases (such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBD) and atheroscelosis)

Dr. Cristiana Caliceti
Prof. Paola Rizzo
Guest Editors

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• Bioactive molecules
• Endothelial function
• Cancer
• Apoptosis
• Gut
• Biosensor
• Dietary compounds
• Food byproducts
• Keratinocytes