Delivery of bioactives in food for optimal efficacy: What inspirations and insights can be gained from pharmaceutics?

Background: Increasing health awareness, together with mounting literature on the health benefits of nutraceuticals, has propelled a plethora of studies for introducing delivery systems to facilitate food enrichment with these bioactives. Regulations protect consumers from fraudulent health-benefit claims, by requiring sound clinical proof. Scope and approach: We review the state-of-the-art of nutraceutical delivery systems, discuss basic principles and food-applicable ideas inspired by drug delivery, and consider differences of delivery in food, where interactions with the food matrix may have dramatic effects on stability, sensory-profile, bioavailability and bioefficacy of the delivered bioactives. With respect to other recently published reviews of delivery systems in food, this review uniquely focusses on the impact of bioactive delivery systems in food on in vivo efficacy of the bioactive by drawing inspiration and insights from the more established pharmaceutical field. Key findings and conclusions: To date, most literature focused on development of delivery systems, their loading performance, stability, protective effects, sensorial attributes and their effect on the bioavailability of the bioactives. Few studies start showing in vivo evidence for improved efficacy of the bioactives thanks to the delivery system. There still remains a need to ascertain that bioactive compounds delivered in real functional foods safely provide health benefits to the consumer. More in vivo and clinical studies are required to assure safety and provide bioavailability and efficacy results to support health claims. We highlight concepts which are common in drug delivery, but are completely new in food, like selective delivery to target-cells, or efflux pumpinhibition for improved uptake. Several possible future trends are suggested.