The improvements of functional ingredients from marine foods in lipid metabolism

Hyperlipidemia with the characteristic of excessive blood lipid level is a risk factor for stroke, coronary heart disease, myocardial infarction, hypertension, impaired glucose tolerance, diabetes, sudden death, and so on. Therefore, we should pay more attention to the dangers of hyperlipidemia and look for natural lipid-lowering ingredients to prevent and relieve hyperlipidemia. In recent years, various studies have shown that active ingredients from marine foods exhibit obvious anti-hyperlipidemia activity, which have attracted more and more researches' attention. This paper shows that the regulatory mechanisms of lipid metabolism mainly include the cholesterol metabolism balance and the metabolism balance of triglyceride and fatty acid. This paper also summarizes active ingredients from marine foods with the role of treating or preventing hyperlipidemia, and relevant literature published in the past decades are reviewed. The active ingredients from marine foods are divided into polysaccharides, lipids, proteins, saponins, polyphenols and others, which are described in this article from the aspects of active ingredients, sources, models, efficacy and mechanisms. This paper may provide a valuable reference for the development of functional ingredients from marine foods with anti-hyperlipidemia activity.