Food product drug

Food product drug is a term used to describe foods that have potential therapeutic effects. This beneficial effect is caused by containing one or more pharmacologically active ingredients. Food product drugs include medicinal foods, dietary fibres, herbs and fungus. In contrary to medical foods, functional foods and nutraceuticals, food product drugs are generally not regulated and can be easily accessed by the public. The most common category is medicinal foods, which includes berries and soy. Some fruits that have promising effects are generally rarer, like custard apples, breadfruits and jackfruits. Dietary fibres can also be considered as food product drugs because both soluble and insoluble fibres provide health benefits to human. In different cultures, herbs are used extensively as drugs too, for instance cinnamon, peppermints and turmeric. Mushroom being a food product drug, is investigated more extensively and statins are developed from it.
Medicinal foods
Food is getting more attentions towards its therapeutic effects in recent years. Increasing cases of studies had shown the effect and potential health benefits of plants and foods, most of which contains pharmacologically active agents similar to those used in medicines, while some are relatively new to modern knowledge.
Common medicinal foods
Even food that is as common as berries and as omnipresent as soy beans can have therapeutic effects. Berries contain a lot of antioxidants and flavonoids, which is found to decrease the risk of heart diseases. While soy isoflavones, a type of phytochemical, can reduce blood ‘bad cholesterol’ and reduce the symptoms of menopause like ease the rate of bone demineralisation. Common food and drinks like leafy green and green tea are also been suggested to have therapeutic effects in human. For more, please see superfoods.

Rare but promising medicinal foods
Annona squamosa Linn. (Custard apple)
Annona squamosa Linn. (Annonaceae) also known as custard apple, is used in India and other tropical countries, contains pharmacologically active agents like anonaine, aporphine, coryeline, isocorydine, norcorydine, and glaucine. It is suggested that this fruit can be used as an anti-diabetic and anti-tumor agent. The seed oil of custard apple have Bullatacin, reported to be able to suppress H<sub>22</sub> tumor cell lines, with surprisingly high efficacy, being 300 times strong that taxol, a current chemotherapy drug.
Its anti-diabetic effect is further supported by the an experiment done on rats. Blood glucose level is significantly dropped after administering extract of fruit peel to rats daily (250 mg/kg body weight) for 21 days.
Artocarpus altilis (Breadfruit)
Artocarpus altilis Parkinson Fosberg (Moraceae) also known as breadfruit, is used in the south west Asia, usually as a starchy food in diets, has been reported for being able to reduce muscle pains. As it contains geranylated flavones, a type of prenylated phenolic compounds, which has antioxidizing properties for easing the joint and muscle pain by having potent inhibitory effect and superoxide anion-scavenging activity. It can reduce the primary mediators of inflammations and thus lessen the pain reaction of the patient.

Artocarpus heterophyllus (Jackfruit)
Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam. (Moraceae) also known as Jackfruit, native in India and Malaysia it has a long history and widely developed treatments in several tribal cultures like Ayurvedic and Unani medicines, all parts of this plant had been documented in their culture as plants, for example used in prevention of bile over production, strength the body and increases virility. Recently, it is found to have artocarpesin. Jacalin is also noticed in its seed oils, which has anti-carcinogenic effects and are suggested to be important for studying the increase immune response for patients have AIDs Solubility is one of the main physical features considered in grouping dietary fibre, and this way, fibre can be soluble or insoluble. The main functions of soluble fibres include supporting the growth of mild bacteria that assist in maintaining the health of the digestive tract, reduce the speed food takes to pass via the stomach and enter the ileum to slow assimilation of glucose into bloodstream and minimise absorption of cholesterol by attaching to it in the digestive tract. Herbs are naturally grown plant materials, however that does not mean they are safe. Some herbals can interact with medicines. Herbs that are used as food are of various categories and kinds. Herbs can be obtained from leaves, stems, seeds, roots, or flowers of a plant. Functions of herbs used as food are sometimes unique to that particular herb; therefore, to understand the functions of herbs in the diet, it is important to discuss each and every herb.
Cinnamon
One of the popular herb used as a spice is cinnamon. Cinnamon can found in various recipes and baked food products. Some studies suggested that cinnamon maybe able to reduce cholesterol triglycerides in human blood, as well as lowering blood glucose, but some showed there are no significant effect.
Peppermint
Peppermint is another popular food product with possible health functions. The oil component of the herb is often associated with possible medicinal use. Some studies suggested that peppermint oil can be applied to minimise pain in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), nausea etc.
Turmeric
Turmeric, which is a popular food product, contains multiple compounds that have medicinal use, particularly the compound curcumin. Curcumin and other chemicals in turmeric may possess anti-inflammatory features. Additionally, some researchers have suggested that turmeric maybe effective for hay fever, depression, high level of cholesterol, osteoarthritis etc.
Statins from mushrooms
Oyster mushrooms have the highest concentration of lovastatin among all mushrooms. Lovastatin is now commonly prescribed for lowering patients low density lipoproteins (LDL). Lovastatin is so effective that just using 80mg can reduce patient cholesterol by about 40-45%. Although most of the current statins are not extracted by fungus, the first statin ever created is isolated from a mushroom, Penicillium citrinum, called mevastatin, which then now developed as a class of medicines.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu