Food ingredients and supplements : is this the future?

The concept of adequate nutrition has been changing in the last years in light of the increased knowledge about the relationship between diet and health and the new evidence on the protective role of numerous bioactive compounds introduced with specific categories of foods. In particular, the concept of adequate nutrition has been substituted with that of optimal nutrition, in other terms, attention has been focused on nutritional needs to optimize physiological functions and promote health, minimizing the risk of development of degenerative diseases. Moreover, it is always more clear that nutritional needs can vary depending on the sub-groups of population considered and also on factors related to individual genetic characteristics, as supported by several nutrigenetic and nutrigenomic studies.