Trends in functional foods against obesity: functional ingredients, technologically modified foods and complete diets

In the fight against obesity, food manufactures had offer, since several decades ago, a variety of food products named in the beginnings as "dietetic products" that were based principally in substitutions of sugars and fat by non-nutritive sweeteners and fat replacers. Nowadays, the research and development of new products, pretends to offer to the market, new food products indicated specially for obese people that besides their low caloric content, can offer the possibility to influence in the energy metabolism as well as in the metabolic sensation of satiety. On the other hand, the new European regulation regarding food labelling, may encourage the food industry to carry out more investment in research and in the determination of the effectiveness of the functional products launched to the market at different levels (biochemical, molecular, genomic and psychological). In this way, the confidence and scientifically contrasted effectiveness of these products as preventive and therapy tools against obesity, may contribute to reduce the incidence of obesity in the whole population.