Marine natural products : A functional food perspective

The twentieth century has seen significant changes in life styles of world population, essentially due to rise in purchasing power together with increased leisure and reduced physical activity. The life style changes had specific impact on food consumption pattern of general public. There was shift toward consumption of energy dense foods with high levels of sugar and saturated fats, which during the course of time showed detrimental effects on health, indicated by rapid global rise in chronic diseases such as obesity, coronary heart diseases, diabetes, hypertension and rheumatoid arthritis (WHO, 2004; Clydesdale, 2004). It has been calculated that, in 2001, these diseases contributed approximately 60% of the 56.5million total reported deaths in the world (WHO, 2003). As a consequence, public recognized the importance of both macro and micronutrients in food in maintenance of health, which also made them to return to natural foods and there has also been an increasing demand for functional foods and food supplements, especially from marine products.