Fucoidans as a natural bioactive ingredient for functional foods

Functional food is considered to be any food or food component that provides health benefits beyond basic nutrition. Recently, a great deal of interest has been paid by the consumers towards natural bioactive compounds as functional ingredients in the diets due to their various health beneficial effects. Notably, marine resources have been recognized as rich sources of structurally diverse biologically active compounds with great application potential in marine functional foods. Among them, fucoidans have been found to possess various bioactivities including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic, anti-tumor, anti-obesity, anti-coagulant, anti-viral, anti-hepatopathy, anti-uropathy, and anti-renalpathy effects. Hence, this contribution focuses on fucoidans derived from marine sources and presents a brief overview of their biological activities with health benefits. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.