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What are Nutraceuticals?
A nutraceutical is a food with a medical-health benefit, including the prevention and treatment of disease. The term was coined in the late 1980s by Stephen DeFelice, M.D., founder and chairman of the Foundation for Innovation in Medicine.
Such foods also commonly are referred to as functional foods, signifying they and/or their components may provide a health benefit beyond basic nutrition. Examples include fruits and vegetables as well as fortified or enhanced foods. While all foods are functional in that they provide nutrients, nutraceuticals contain health- promoting ingredients or natural components that have a potential health benefit for the body. “Functional” attributes of many traditional foods are being discovered, while new food products are being developed with beneficial components.
The concept of nutraceuticals is not entirely new, although it has evolved considerably over the years. In the early 1900s, food manufacturers in the United States began adding iodine to salt in an effort to prevent goiter (an enlargement of the thyroid gland), representing one of the first attempts at creating a functional component through fortification. Today, researchers have identified hundreds of compounds with functional qualities, and they continue to make new discoveries surrounding the complex benefits of phytochemicals (non-nutritive plant chemicals that have protective or disease preventive properties) in foods.