Cardiovascular diseases and diabetes are the biggest causes of death globally. Therefore, prevention of these diseases is a focus of pharmaceuticals and functional food manufacturers. This review summarizes recent research trends and scientific knowledge in seaweed protein-derived peptides with particular emphasis on production, isolation and potential health impacts in prevention of hypertension, diabetes and oxidative stress. The current status and future prospects of bioactive peptides are also discussed. Bioactive peptides have strong potential for use in therapeutic drug and functional food formulation in health management strategy, especially cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Seaweeds can be used as sustainable protein sources in the production of these peptide-based drugs and functional foods for preventing such diseases. Many studies have reported that peptides showing angiotensin converting enzyme inhibition, antihypertensive, antioxidative and antidiabetics activities, have been successfully isolated from seaweed. However, further research is needed in large-scale production of these peptides, efficient isolation methods, interactions with functional foods and other pharmaceuticals, and their ease to digestion in in vivo studies and safety to validate the health benefits of these peptides.

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Inhibition of α-amylase enzyme is one therapeutic approach in lowering glucose level in the blood to manage diabetes mellitus. In this study α-amylase inhibitory peptides were identified from proteolytic enzymes hydrolysates of red seaweed laver ( Porphyra species) using consecutive chromatographic techniques. In the resultant fractions from RP-HPLC (D-), D inhibited α-amylase activity (88.67 ± 1.05%) significantly ( p ≤ 0.5) at 1 mg/mL protein concentration. A mass spectrometry (ESI-Q-TOF- MS) analysis was used to identify peptides from this fraction. Two novel peptides were identified as Gly-Gly-Ser-Lys and Glu-Leu-Ser. To validate their α-amylase inhibitory activity, these peptides were synthesized chemically. The peptides were demonstrated inhibitory activity at IC value: 2.58 ± 0.08 mM (Gly-Gly-Ser-Lys) and 2.62 ± 0.05 mM (Glu-Leu-Ser). The inhibitory kinetics revealed that these peptides exhibited noncompetitive binding mode. Thus, laver can be a potential source of novel ingredients in food and pharmaceuticals in diabetes mellitus management.

In this study, the physicochemical, nutritional and functional properties of epicarp, flesh and pitted samples of doum fruit (Hyphaene thebaica) were assessed. Results on carbohydrate content revealed that the flesh, pitted fruit and epicarp samples contained 72.50%, 65.61% and 44.17% respectively. Total fiber was highly concentrated in the epicarp accounting for more than 40%. It was further revealed that the fruit contained substantial amounts of essential minerals as follows: sodium 364.7 mg/100 g, calcium 284 mg/100 g and iron 12.18 mg/100 g in the epicarp while the following were contained in the flesh part of the fruit: potassium 2947.6 mg/100 g, magnesium 185.62 mg/100 g and phosphorus 154.6 mg/100 g. Vitamin content was determined by RP-HPLC and the results showed that doum fruit is a good source of vitamin B-complex which was found it at high portion in epicarp with the variance of 3.6 mg/100 g in niacin (B3) content to 13.6 mg/100 g in pyridoxine (B6) content. Monosaccharide content was determined by using HPAEC-PAD and the results showed that the flesh of the doum fruit is a good source of glucose and fructose. There was a significant difference in color parameters between samples. Bulk density results were 0.73, 0.75 and 0.95 mg/ml for epicarp, pitted fruit and flesh respectively. It can be concluded that the doum fruit contained essential nutrients and functional properties which can be exploited for various useful applications.

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