The Future Of Nutraceuticals

The interest and involvement in the nutraceutical research is beginning to expand globally, as more and more scientists are beginning to recognize and appreciate the true potential of nutraceuticals (whether plant indigenous or from animal sources) and their offered health benefits. The term nutraceutical is a hybrid of the words nutrition and pharmaceuticals. Reportedly, Dr. DeFelice and the Foundation of Innovation Medicine, Crawford, NJ coined the term in 1989. (Wildman, et.al, 2007)

It can be said that these animal product and plant indigenous chemical compounds have the potential to offer health enhancements that can be directly related to the health benefits offered by various small molecule pharmaceutical compounds. Foods that are fortified with these nutraceuticals from various food and plant sources are often classified as “functional foods” i.e foods that now have the ability to provide a some sort of a health beneficial function to promote one’s well-being. According to the International Food Information Council (IFIC) functional foods are “foods or dietary components that may provide a health benefit beyond basic nutrition” (IFIC, 2011; Wildman et.al, 2007)

2.0 Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA)

Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) is mixture of geometrical and positional isomers of linoleic acid or more commonly known omega-6 fatty acid. They are long chained fatty acids (C18) with two double C=C bonds most commonly situated at C9 (-cis type) and C11 (-trans type) or C10 (-trans type) C12 (-cis type) (See figure 1). These two omega-6 isomers (CLA) are most commonly found in nature. CLA is an essential fatty acid for humans. (Cheridan, 2006)

Figure 1: Chemical structures of conjugated linoleic acid (Ω-6)(above) and its two ...

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...to increase fat metabolism rate and boost muscle mass during heavy weight training, there are other health benefits offered by CLA. These include:

4.1 Role of CLA and Cancer Prevention:

Some scientists suggest that CLA has enough bioactive potential to prevent onsets of cancerous cell developments. CLA shows inhibitory effects against multistage carcinogenesis at relatively low dietary requirements. Several in vitro studies were conducted to investigate CLA potential against the malignant proliferation of breast, lung, colon and liver carcinomas. In vivo experiments revealed that one gram per 100g of feed of dietary CLA reduced the proliferation of terminal end bud and lobuloalveolar bud structures, the sites at which tumors form both in rat and human mammary cancers in mice models. Also, CLA may reduce arachidonate-derived eicosanoids such as prostaglandin-E2, PGF2