Abstract
Epidemiological studies are providing strong evidence on beneficial health effects from dietary measures, leading scientists to actively investigate which foods and which specific agents in the diet can prevent diseases. Public health officers and medical experts should collaborate toward the design of disease prevention diets for nutritional intervention. Functional foods are emerging as an instrument for dietary intervention in disease prevention. Functional food products are technologically developed ingredients with specific health benefits. Among promising sources of functional foods and chemopreventive diets of interest, microalgae are gaining worldwide attention, based on their richness in high-value products, including carotenoids, proteins, vitamins, essential amino acids, omega-rich oils and, in general, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compounds. Beneficial effects of microalgae on human health and/or wellness could in the future be useful in preventing or delaying the onset of cancer and cardiovascular diseases. During the past decades, microalgal biomass was predominately used in the health food market, with more than 75% of the annual microalgal biomass production being employed for the manufacture of powders, tablets, capsules or pastilles. In this review, we report and discuss the present and future role of microalgae as marine sources of functional foods/beverages for human wellbeing, focusing on perspectives in chemoprevention. We dissected this topic by analyzing the different classes of microalgal compounds with health outputs (based on their potential chemoprevention activities), the biodiversity of microalgal species and how to improve their cultivation, exploring the perspective of sustainable food from the sea.
Highlights
Among the new entries in the sector of food supplements, microalgae have emerged as nutraceutical elements, endowed with beneficial effects on health
Marine microalgae are currently being employed as functional foods due to their high content of polyunsaturated fatty acids (e.g., PUFAs n3 and n6), essential amino acids and pigments and vitamins (e.g., B12)
Vitamins are essential for health, being precursors of important enzyme cofactors that are required for essential metabolic functions
Summary
Among the new entries in the sector of food supplements, microalgae have emerged as nutraceutical elements, endowed with beneficial effects on health. Microalgae represent promising opportunities in the field of functional foods due to their production of valuable bioactive ingredients, such as carotenoids with already known health benefits [5], as well other antioxidant compounds [6]. This feature represents an added plus-value since synergism between different families of bioactive compounds strongly enhances their beneficial effects on health [7,8]. Nutraceuticals include mixtures and pure compounds isolated from herbs, as well as dietary derivatives, transformed foods such as cereals, spices, condiments and beverages with beneficial effects on health Given their recent classification, there are no specific regulations that classify nutraceuticals as a separate category from drugs, food ingredients or dietary supplements, depending on the country. We report here an overview of known bioactive molecules, exploring exploited and unexploited microalgal biodiversity, and discussing further developments of microalgal biotechnology in terms of nutraceuticals and functional ingredients for health benefit and disease prevention
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