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Received Aug 30, 2017; Revised Dec 5, 2017; Accepted Dec 25, 2017
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1. Introduction
In the last decades, views on the role of foods in human health have changed markedly. Even though a balanced diet remains a key objective to prevent deficiencies and respective associated diseases, an excellent nutrition will aim at establishing the optimum intake of as many food components as possible in order to promote health or reduce the risk of diseases. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the major challenge of the science of nutrition is, thus, to progress from improving life expectancy to improving life quality. On the road to an excellent nutrition, functional food is an interesting and stimulating concept, as much as it is supported by sound and consensual scientific data generated by the recently developed functional food science. This aims at improving dietary guidelines by integrating new knowledge on the interactions between food components and body functions and/or pathological processes.
The emergence of bioactive compounds with health benefits offers an excellent opportunity for food scientists to depict their role in health. Despite the mechanisms of bioactive substances in physiological functions not being yet fully depicted, their addition in food products is recognized as holding high potential to decrease disease risk [1, 2]. The incorporation of bioactive compounds, such as vitamins, prebiotics, carotenoids, phenolic compounds, and phytosterols, in food systems provides a way to develop novel functional foods that may present health benefits or reduce the risk of disease [3].
Functional foods could be (i) usual foods with naturally occurring bioactive substances (i.e., dietary fibre), (ii) foods supplemented with bioactive substances or microorganisms (i.e., antioxidants, probiotics), and (iii) derived food ingredients introduced to conventional foods (i.e., prebiotics). It may also be referred that functional foods are not medicines, such as pills or capsules, but are consumed as part of a normal daily diet.
The effectiveness of functional foods in preventing diseases depends on preserving the stability, bioactivity, and bioavailability of the active compounds [4]. This represents a great challenge because only a small proportion of molecules remains available...