Microalgal Derivatives as Potential Nutraceutical and Food Supplements for Human Health: A Focus on Cancer Prevention and Interception

Abstract

Epidemiological studies are providing strong evidence on beneficial health effects from dietary measures, leading scientists to actively investigate which foods and which specific agents in the diet can prevent diseases. Public health officers and medical experts should collaborate toward the design of disease prevention diets for nutritional intervention. Functional foods are emerging as an instrument for dietary intervention in disease prevention. Functional food products are technologically developed ingredients with specific health benefits. Among promising sources of functional foods and chemopreventive diets of interest, microalgae are gaining worldwide attention, based on their richness in high-value products, including carotenoids, proteins, vitamins, essential amino acids, omega-rich oils and, in general, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compounds. Beneficial effects of microalgae on human health and/or wellness could in the future be useful in preventing or delaying the onset of cancer and cardiovascular diseases. During the past decades, microalgal biomass was predominately used in the health food market, with more than 75% of the annual microalgal biomass production being employed for the manufacture of powders, tablets, capsules or pastilles. In this review, we report and discuss the present and future role of microalgae as marine sources of functional foods/beverages for human wellbeing, focusing on perspectives in chemoprevention. We dissected this topic by analyzing the different classes of microalgal compounds with health outputs (based on their potential chemoprevention activities), the biodiversity of microalgal species and how to improve their cultivation, exploring the perspective of sustainable food from the sea.

Effect of Glycerol Concentration and Light Intensity on Growth and Biochemical Composition of Arthrospira (Spirulina) Platensis: A Study in Semi-Continuous Mode with Non-Aseptic Conditions

“…Lipids of A. platensis are of interest due to their desirable fatty acid profile comprising of relative high levels of unsaturated fatty acids, important for the nutraceutical sector [34]. In the present study A. platensis cultivated on glycerol displayed in most experimental cases a generally unchanged lipid content (Table 4), where significant higher content was obtained at the highest glycerol concentrations (>3 g/L).…”

Comparison of Galdieria Growth and Photosynthetic Activity in Different Culture Systems

“…Indeed, Galdieria has been the subject of different studies in algal biotechnology. It was used for wastewater treatment (Ju et al 2016;Henkanette-Gedera et al 2016;da Silva et al 2016;Carbone et al 2018;Galasso et al 2019;Alalwan et al 2019;Sosa-Hernández et al 2019 ) and for recovery of rare earth elements (Minoda et al 2015). Moreover, this organism produces high levels of phycobiliproteins that are used in diverse medical and cosmetic products (Schmidt et al 2005;Graverholt and Eriksen 2007;Sørensen et al 2013;Eriksen et al 2018) and in different compounds with antioxidant properties (Carfagna et al 2016).…”

Antioxidant Activity and total Phenolic Content of Defatted Scenedesmus quadricauda KDPSC2 Biomass Extract by Microbial Fermentation

“…However, still there is not enough knowledge and data about the practical usefulness of various plants to meet out the requirement due to rapid population development. Investigating new natural antioxidants for nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals industries is a relevant key-research topic 5 ; microalgae are highly promising in this context 6,7 . Microalgae are characterized by a high biodiversity and ISSN: 2250-1177…”