Functional Food and Human Health

Global health and the increasing incidence of various diseases are a cause for concern, and doctors and scientists reason that the diet, food habits and lifestyle are contributing factors. Processed food has reduced the nutritional value of our diet, and although supplementing foods with various additives is considered an alternative, the long-term impact of this is not known. Many laboratories around the world are working to identify various nutritional components in our daily food and their effect on human health. These have been classified as Nutraceuticals or functional food, and they may have preventive and therapeutic effects in a number of pathologies associated with modern dietary habits and lifestyles.
This book addresses various aspects of this issue, revitalizing the discussion and consolidating the latest research on nutritional and functional food and their effects in in-vitro, in-vivo and human clinical studies.

Dr Vibha Rani is working as an Associate Professor in the Department of Biotechnology, Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida, India. After completing her Doctoral Studies from School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, she has continued her academic career where she teaches as well as guides graduate, postgraduate and doctorate students in the area of oxidative stress-induced cardiomyopathy and other development-related heart Diseases. Dr Rani is an academician as well as an accomplished young scientist and has been in research for sixteen years. Her current research focus is to understand the mechanism of action of phytomolecules, and also to develop ideal drug molecule for prevention of noncommunicable diseases. She has been focusing on developing natural therapies and microRNAs based therapeutics to address the most severe disorders that affect the human society such as cardiomyopathy, diabetes and breast cancer. Dr Rani has received many extra-mural funding for her research work from the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Govt. of India. She has been successfully able to communicate her research findings to various International Journals. She has been honoured with the prestigious A.R. Rao Memorial Young Scientist Award, S.C. Tyagi Young Faculty Award and Academic Brilliance Young Faculty Award, 2017, which accounts for just few among the much recognitions that she has.

Dr. Umesh C S Yadav is currently working as an Associate Professor at the School of Life Sciences, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar. His current focus area of research includes understanding the biochemical and molecular mechanisms of metabolic disorder-induced chronic inflammatory diseases including diabetic and cardiovascular disorders, cancer, asthma and COPD. Dr. Yadav has a Ph.D. degree from the School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where he investigated the effects of Trigonella foenum-graecum on diabetic complications. He has over thirteen years of research experience, six years as postdoctoral fellow and more than seven years as faculty member. Dr. Yadav spent nine years in the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) Galveston, Texas, USA where he performed excellent research in oxidative stress-induced inflammatory pathologies such as diabetic and cardiovascular complications, lung inflammatory diseases including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and ocular inflammatory diseases. He has published nearly 50 research articles in high impact journals including reviews and book chapters which indicate towards his expertise in inflammatory diseases and associated signalling pathways and their modulation using different drug molecules, including natural products. Dr. Yadav has been awarded a prestigious Ramanujan Fellowship from department of science and technology (DST), Government of India, New Delhi.