Abstract
The concept of functional and novel foods undoubtedly bears great potential as an asset to human health. However, this very same quest for ever new bioactive ingredients calls for reliable and distinct risk assessment as they may be potentially hazardous to human health. Most of today’s methodologies still rely on decades old routines of animal trials and use of tumor-derived cell lines. Since such methodologies are not in line with the actual processes in the human body and with the 3R (replacement, reduction, refinement) concept, the results are often unreliable and misleading. Therefore, in this paper we propose the utilization of available untransformed small intestinal cell lines derived from human and pig tissue of non-tumor origin and describe several available cell models of the gut that offer a functional, close resemblance with the in vivo environment.
Highlights
Functional food is any food or modified ingredient that can provide a beneficial effect beyond that provided by common nutrients [1]
Since the commercialization of the concept of functional food, immense scientific effort has been put into development and identification of new bioactives and microorganisms that could be used to promote human health, slowly followed by establishment of a regulatory framework to assure consumer safety
Toxicology forms the core of risk assessment where safe doses are investigated following the accepted paradigm consisting of: hazard identification; hazard characterization; exposure assessment; and risk characterization [4,5,6]
Summary
Functional food is any food or modified ingredient that can provide a beneficial effect beyond that provided by common nutrients [1]. Since the commercialization of the concept of functional food, immense scientific effort has been put into development and identification of new bioactives and microorganisms that could be used to promote human health, slowly followed by establishment of a regulatory framework to assure consumer safety. The growing markets of functional foods drive the quest for constant innovation which in return gives rise to yet unknown natural or synthetic sources Such new ingredients with no previously documented attributes bear certain risks which have to be identified and evaluated. In our paper we outline and propose new methodologies such as 3D cell models of the gut that could serve as alternatives for long time overdue practices in risk assessment and toxicological studies of functional foods and other bioactive molecules
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