Vegetables as Source of Functional Foods and Nutraceutical: Their Role in Disease Prevention

Abstract

The increased prevalence of non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer worldwide has attracted considerable attention towards diet as a strategy for disease prevention. Vegetables are examined as functional foods, and source of nutraceuticals in the prevention and health promotion against chronic diseases. Vegetables are found to be rich in macronutrients, micronutrients, and fiber content, along with numerous bioactive compounds such as polyphenols, flavonoids, carotenoids, glucosinolates, organosulfur compounds and phytosterols. Clinical, epidemiological, and experimental studies show that these compounds show both anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory, cardioprotective, anti carcinogenic, and metabolic regulatory effects on the body through several biological mechanisms. The consumption of vegetables has been inversely associated with incidence of ischemic heart disease, stroke, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. This article also covers the trends of developments in the vegetable-based nutraceuticals: nutrigenomics, nanotechnology mediated delivery of nutrients, use of microgreens and agricultural by-products as source of high value bioactives. Even with these exciting trends, we are faced with issues such as bioavailability, phytochemical variability and human clinical trial paucity and regulatory concerns. It is concluded that vegetables form an essential part of preventative nutrition. Increasing the access of vegetables in our diet and vegetables derived nutraceuticals would make a significant impact in alleviating the problem of global NCDs, both health-wise and economic-wise.