抗酸化食品の健康増進効果の科学的根拠 : 抗酸化機能は体を良くするか？

In Japan, the law “Food for Specified Health Uses : FoSHU” was started in 1991 as a result of advanced research on functional foods. Recently, research and development of functional foods has been a worldwide trend in food industry. Antioxidant activity is believed to be one of the important functions to estimate the physiological role of functional foods. Antioxidant foods containing a lot of antioxidant components, that is, vitamin E, vitamin C, carotenoids, flavonoids and so on, seems to be effective to promote human health because antioxidants can protect the body from severe oxidative stress leading to a variety of diseases. However, the scientific evidence has not been enough yet to explain the health promotion and disease prevention by the usage of antioxidant foods. Human studies, in particular, well-organized intervention studies, should be required to break through this situation.