Milk-Derived Bioactive Peptides: Health Benefits

Abstract

210Peptides derived from milk proteins have been shown to exert beneficial effects on human health and therefore attracted the interest of researchers as a health promoting functional food. These biological properties may play an important role in the development of medical foods that treat or mitigate the effects of diseases. Bioactive peptide preparations have the potential to be used in the formulation of functional foods and cosmetics and as potent drugs having well-defined pharmacological effects. With the rise of consumer concerns about the natural components, milk-derived bioactive substances may have value in food preservation and nutraceuticals. Application of enrichment protocols such as membrane processing and chromatographic isolation may also be an area of future interest in the extraction of potent biofunctional peptides from milk and dairy products and their subsequent utilization as functional food ingredients. There is an insistent need to focus on developing novel facilities including advanced proteomics approaches, recombinant enzyme technologies, and microbial fermentation, to study the various impacts of bioactive peptides on expression of genes and also to optimize the nutritional and health effects of these compounds. Consequently allergenicity, toxicity, and stability of its biological functions during gastrointestinal digestion should be tested in formulation of products incorporated with bioactive peptides.