Nutraceutical products based on polysaccharides: sources, properties and applications

Abstract Nutraceuticals have shown multiple health benefits to human beings via prevention and treatment of the chronic and acute diseases, in addition to their nutritional importance. They have attracted the attention of researchers, health-care professionals, consumers, drug regulators, and food and drug producers and distributors. These can be produced, derived, or modified from natural food and nonfood sources including microorganisms (e.g., fungi, algae, and yeast), plants, and animals. In this regard, biopolymers based on fungi (β-glucans or heteropolysaccharides) have shown the nutraceutical properties and have been obtained mostly from fungus Basidiomycetes and Ascomycetes family. These can also be extracted from marine brown seaweed, and numbers of its species have shown having sulfate polysaccharides (such as alginate or fucoidan) in their extracts. Nutraceuticals generally show limited aqueous solubility and bioavailability that can be enhanced using nanotechnology via nano-scale formulation and encapsulation of bioactive compounds that can help in release or delivery of nano-sized nutraceuticals to the desired place. We will discuss different sources and types of polysaccharides which can be used as nutraceutical products, followed by the discussion on their utilization in different sectors.