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History and situation analysis of zoonutrients in nutrition and food industry |
J. B. GERMAN, Dept. of Food Science & Technology, Univ. of California, Davis, 1 Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616 Milk has been well recognized for its nutritional value due to its content of essential nutrients. However, essential nutrients are present in milk due to their transfer from the mother’s diet to the milk. Metabolic products of the lactating mammary gland are being shown to provide a spectrum of benefits. Traditionally, the discovery of non-essential nutrients was limited by the tools by which nutritional values were described. The strategy of demonstrating the value of a nutrient by characterizing the deficiency symptoms precipitated by its removal does not address nutrients that are non-essential. Thus, the first generation of zoonutrients were compounds that enhanced the bioavailability and thus increased the effective dose of essential nutrients. Not surprisingly, milk has been shown to contain many such compounds. Research to explore the majority of benefits of non-essential nutrients was accelerated when investigators began to explore the principles of immunology, and physiology in molecular detail using isolated cells, and to assemble screening assays to search for biological molecules that influence them. Surprisingly, components from milk were discovered to exert significant effects on many of these assay systems. This led to the second generation of zoonutrients, molecules that modified physiological targets of known health problems including anti-inflammatory, anti-hypertension and antimicrobial actions. Now modern biological tools are being directed to the specific biochemical and molecular actions of biological components and deducing dietary functions that were previously unknown, including as examples, the stimulation of beneficial bacteria, the maturation of intestinal cells and the education of the immune system. The arrival of the human genome is accelerating this process providing knowledge and technologies to establish a greater understanding of how molecules, including those in milk, will provide the next generation of health properties.
Session 20, Applications and health benefits of zoonutrients for today's consumers
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