Nutraceutical and functional foods

are having an important role in our daily lives.  This is due mainly to the consumers concern on their health for well being. Therefore, the food industry have paid more attention in developing and producing novel nutraceutical and functional food products to serve the consumer needs. In the same time, scientists thrive to understand better how some specific components may influence the ability of the body to develop diseases (such as cancer) or may lead to possible longevity.  To support the Research and Development in this area, The faculty of Agro-Industry, Prince of Songkla University, offers a Master Degree and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Functional Food and Nutrition.

Research Areas

Prebiotics and Probiotics  

• Extraction of functional carbohydrates and oligosaccharides from fruits and vegetables.
• Enzymatic membrane reactor for synthesis of oligosaccharides using local wastes and food raw materials.
• Evaluation on prebiotic properties:digestibility, probiotics promotion, fermentability, animal study and human trial.
• Development of probiotics and prebiotics for industrial purposes.

Bioactive from Grains  

• Qualitative and quantitative analysis of bioactive compounds and anti-oxidant property in the whole grains.
• Utilization of low cost food raw materials, agriculture and agro-industry wastes for production of high value functional ingredients.
• Study on low glycemic index (GI) bread with long shelf-life for blood glucose control.
• Structure modification of natural compounds to enhance stability and functional properties.

Functional ingredients  

• Development of Thai curry past and evaluation of its bioactive function properties.
• Study the effects and mechanisms of action of plant crude extracts and/or isolated pure substances from medicinal plants, vegetables or fruits for targeted prevention of targeted diseases.
• Study on relationship of bioactive food components, gene transcription, protein expression, metabolism to design functional food for specific gene.
• Study on mechanism of bioactive food components for prevention of non-communicable, chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, obesity and cancer through modifiable nutrigenomics mechanisms.

Functional food  

• Isolation of bioactive peptides by enzymatic hydrolysis and membrane technology from agro-industry wastes and natural products.
• Evaluation of functional properties and stability of bioactive peptides.
• Encapsulation technology for delivery of food ingredients.
• Manufacturing of supplements using capsule and tablet technology.  

Health food for elderly  

• Prevention of metabolic diseases (overweight, diabetes, and coronary heart diseases) with nutritionally balanced foods.
• Pharmacological studies of natural products in animal model including in vivo and ex vivo assays.
• Investigation on inflammatory inhibitor from indigenous vegetables based on animal cell culture.
• Safety assessment: acute and chronic toxicity of bioactive compounds from plants, animals and microbial.