Nutraceuticals & Its Future Prospect

Quality healthcare is one of the main goals and purposes of a successful country. Understanding the relationships between foods, physiological function and disease have progressed in recent years, particularly over the past decade. Nowadays foods are not just consumed as sources of nutrients and energy but also provide medicinal benefits. It has been known for centuries that foods could have medicinal properties, but what is new is the discovered science behind these knowledge and the scientific terms used to describe these properties. One of the most important terms used is nutraceuticals. The term nutraceuticals was coined from “nutrition” and “pharmaceutical in 1989 which is referred to any food or part of a food system that provides medical or health benefits, including the prevention and treatment of disease. Foods are medicine and when used in the right quantities, combinations, time and place can treat a vast range of acute and chronic disorders and diseases. Generally people prefer using nutraceuticals over drugs due to high drug costs and their side effects. For nutraceuticals, there are three key issues of the technology in the developed countries; (1) estab-lishment of scientific assessment standard for prevention of diseases, (2) establishment of assessment system for disease prevention by human trials and (3) establishment of seamless system to transfer stage from basic research to green industrialization. Global nutraceuticals market is a very rich and promising market. As a concept, nutraceuticals industry although has grown enormously, is still in its early stages. The list of nutraceuticals being studied is changing constantly which reflects ongoing research, discoveries and consumer demand. The same phenomena should take place in Iran where authorities, green industries and people mostly recognize the importance of the quote; “Let food be our medicine”