Introduction

This book presents innovative functional food ideas for the management of obesity. This issue not only preserves some of the wealth of contributions made in the field but lays the foundation for a field of science that promises to expand in the coming years, potentially changing modern society’s relationship with medicine.

This cornerstone guide, written by internationally recognized functional, medical, and bioactive food experts, covers the basics of functional food science. With more than 1,500 scientific references, this book provides scientists, medical doctors, nutritionists, food technologists, students majoring in biology, nutrigenetic and food science fields, and public health professionals with a comprehensive and up-to-date examination of functional foods.

This book provides current information on functional food components, including antioxidants, dietary fibers, prebiotics, plant sterols, bioactive peptides, and many other phytochemicals. This text presents some of the latest developments in nutrigenomics, molecular biology, and epidemiology, as well as the latest innovations surrounding the anti-obesogenic effects of different bioactive compounds.

In this first edition of our textbook, our editorial board has included information, and resources to enhance our readers’ learning experience. These include detailed editing of articles, figures, tables, and pictures, end-of-chapter summaries for each chapter, test questions at the end of each chapter, and a glossary with keywords. We believe that this edition will help our readers to better understand the new material and concepts of functional food science.

Book Chapters

Chapter 1: Prevention of obesity, chronic diseases, and increased healthy longevity with the Mediterranean Diet

Chapter 2: The Role of Prebiotics and Probiotics in the Intestinal Barrier Function

Chapter 3: The Anti-Obesogenic Effects of Prebiotics and Probiotics

Chapter 4: Intestinal Barrier Integrity Through the Use of Prebiotics and Probiotics

Chapter 5: Intestinal Barrier Structure in Response to Stressors

Chapter 6: The Mechanism of Bioactive Peptides to Control Obesity Related Inflammation

Chapter 7: How food-derived Bioactive Peptides Fight Inflammation and Manage Obesity

Chapter 8: Fish oil derived omega-3 fatty acids on the downregulation of inflammatory
biomarkers

Chapter 9: How antioxidant enriched foods fight oxidative stress induced by obesity

Chapter 10: The Effect of Dietary Phytochemicals on Adipose Tissue Growth

Chapter 11: Food Supplements and Beneficial Effects in Obesity

Chapter 12: Capsaicinoids (and Its Analogs) Contribution to Body Fat Reduction

Chapter 13: The role that Ferulic acid found in coffee has on visceral fat accumulation and
glucose

Chapter 14: Polyphenols and Health Benefits in Obesity

**In order to get the most out of this edition, we recommend reading each chapter completely and to also review the summary paragraphs that conclude each chapter. These summaries lay out the main take-aways from the chapter and help to put the chapter as a whole into perspective.