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Nutraceutical
What
are nutraceuticals?
Food
as medicine
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The
idea to use ”food as medicine” was firstly installed
by Hippocrates ( 460-370 B.C) -the renowned father of medicine-
more than one thousand years ago. Quoted as saying, “allow
food to be your first medicine” he tried to educate future
physicians and researchers in the great benefits that nature could
bestow upon us by the ethical exploitation of natural resources.
With the advancement of technology and the advantages of chemical
synthesis, pharmaceutical drugs have gained precedence to the
more conventional therapeutical methods set out by natural medicine.
But even though pharmaceutical drugs have without a doubt optimised
therapeutical treatments, society has felt the backlash of such
treatments in the form |
of
negative side effects. It was the Japanese that first looked at food
as a possible source of good health and hence coined the term FOSHU
or foods for specific health use. In the western world, it was Dr Stephen
L. Defelice that gave nutraceuticals their official definition by defining
them as "any substance that may be considered a food
or part of a food which, in addition to its normal nutritive value,
provides health benefits including prevention of disease."
What is "new" about these foods is science's added knowledge
about the disease-preventing components they contain. Nutraceuticals
have been associated with the prevention and/or treatment of at least
four of the leading causes of death everywhere- cancer, diabetes, heart
disease and hypertension- and with the prevention and/or treatment of
other medical ailments including neural tube defects, osteoporosis and
arthritis. As we head towards the 21st century, nutritional science
has come into its own with manufacturers and consumers placing far more
emphasis on the benefits to be derived from food. "You are what
you eat" has never been more relevant.
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