Marine Nutraceuticals—Prospects and Perspectives

There is a great deal of consumer interest in natural bioactive substances due to their health benefits. Offering the potential to provide valuable nutraceuticals and functional food ingredients, marine-derived compounds are an abundant source of nutritionally and pharmacologically active agents, with both chemical diversity and complexity. Functional ingredients derived from marine algae, invertebrates, vertebrates, and microorganisms can help fill the need for novel bioactives to treat chronic conditions such as cancer, microbial infections, and inflammatory processes.

With contributions from an international group of experts, Marine Nutraceuticals: Prospects and Perspectives provides a comprehensive account of marine-derived nutraceuticals and their potential health benefits. These include antioxidant, anticancer, antiviral, anticoagulant, antidiabetic, antiallergic, anti-inflammatory, antihypertensive, antibacterial, and radioprotective properties. The book focuses on various types of marine-derived compounds—such as secondary metabolites like phlorotannins and fucoxanthin, carotenoid pigments, chito-oligosaccharide derivatives from chitin and chitosan, bioactive peptides, and polysaccharides—presenting an overview of their nutraceutical activities.

Chapters address neuroprotecive properties of seaweeds, bioactive compounds in abalone, marine products and autoimmune disease, chitosan for weight management, anticancer actions of omega-3 fatty acids, chitosan in dentistry, and much more. The book discusses the sources, isolation and purification, chemistry, functional interactions, applications, and industrial perspectives of marine-derived nutraceuticals. The inaugural book in the new CRC Press series, Nutraceuticals: Basic Research/Clinical Applications, it provides a state-of-the-art reference for all readers interested in this growing field—a rich source for new compounds with promising uses in the nutraceutical, medicinal, and functional food industries.

Professor Se-Kwon Kim, Ph.D., is a senior professor of marine biochemistry in the Department of Chemistry and is the director of the Marine Bioprocess Research Center (MBPRC) at Pukyong National University in the Republic of Korea. His major research interests include investigation and development of bioactive substances derived from marine organisms and their application in oriental medicine, nutraceuticals, and cosmeceuticals via marine bioprocessing and mass-production technologies. He is a board member of the International Society of Marine Biotechnology and the International Society for Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods. To date, he has authored over 500 research papers, holds 110 patents, and has written or edited more than 40 books.