Complex foods versus functional foods, nutraceuticals and dietary supplements: differential health impact (Part 2)
2015
Fardet, Anthony
What differentiates natural complex foods from nutraceuticals and dietary supplements is food structure, this latter involving nutrient interaction and synergism, and a complex mixture at nutritional doses. Scientific evidence showed that functional foods, nutraceuticals and dietary supplements (FND) have failed stopping chronic diseases epidemics: most conclusions of recent meta-analyses and systematic reviews are lack of significant health effect and needs for further studies. Why such disappointing results? Probably because FND results from a curative and reductionist nutritional approach while complex foods participates in a preventive and holistic approach. Indeed, reductionism has led to fractionate foods, isolating compounds from them for use at supra-nutritional doses in FND. Holism considers foods as complex systems in which the whole is more than sum of the parts leading to more sustainable health effects, and technological treatments more respectful of food structure.
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