Nutraceuticals: new era of medicine and health

TLDR

Nutraceuticals are non‑traditional substances with positive physiological effects that occupy a grey area between food and drug, a concept emerging from consumer surveys in the UK, Germany, and France. The study aims to promote safer nutraceutical and functional food strategies for health management due to drug toxicity concerns. The findings highlight a global nutraceutical revolution that will usher in a new era of medicine and health, transforming the food industry into a research‑oriented sector akin to pharmaceuticals.

Abstract

The concept of nutraceutical was stared from the survey in U.K., Germany and France which concluded that diet is rated more highly by consumers than exercise or hereditary factors for achieving good health. Nutraceutical is a term coined to describe substances which are not traditionally recognized nutrients but which have positive physiological effects on the human body. They do not easily fall into the legal category of food and drug and often inhabit a grey area between the two. Risk of toxicity or adverse effect of drugs led us to consider safer nutraceutical and functional food based approaches for the health management. This resulted in a world wide nutraceutical revolution. The nutraceutical revolution will lead us into a new era of medicine and health, in which the food industry will become a researchoriented one similar to the pharmaceutical industry.