Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods

What is a nutraceutical?

Nutraceutical (from nutrition + pharmaceutical) is a commercial term used for foods or food products that might help to prevent and treat diseases. Nutraceuticals can include ^[1]:

• Minerals, vitamins and other dietary supplements
• Herbal products: garlic (allicin), ginger, echinacea, ginseng, liquorice, onion, senna, turmeric (curcumin)
• Dietary enzymes: bromelain, papain
• Dietary fiber
• Hydrolyzed proteins
• Phytonutrients: resveratrol
• Carotenoids: lycopene
• Prebiotics
• Probiotics

Nutraceuticals are usually natural substances and, unlike drugs, are not substances synthesized for a certain purpose ^[1].

Nutraceuticals are also called functional foods, which are defined as “food products to be taken as part of the usual diet in order to have beneficial effects that go beyond basic nutritional function” ^[1].

In the United States, the term nutraceutical has no legal meaning, so a product is regulated depending on its ingredients and health claims with which it is marketed as food, food ingredient, dietary supplement or drug ^[2].