Dairy peptides: Production, bioavailability and health benefits

Abstract

Some peptides generated by enzymatic protein hydrolysis are structurally similar to endogenous peptides that play a crucial role in the organism as hormones, neurotransmitters or antibiotics. Therefore, food peptides can interact with the same receptors than endogenous peptides and exert an agonistic or antagonistic effect in the organism. The beneficial biological functionalities of milk-derived peptides include antimicrobial, antihypertensive, immunomodulatory, opioid-like activity etc. Due to their physiological and physio-chemical versatility, food-derived peptides are regarded as highly prominent components for health promoting foods or pharmaceutical applications. However, the development of these new ingredients should be based on scientific criteria able to demonstrate their health properties unequivocally.

This communication will review our last results on the development of functional ingredients based on milk-derived bioactive peptides, mainly exerting an antihypertensive activity or with effect on the intestinal tract. Special attention will be paid to the identification of novel active sequences, the survival of peptides to gastrointestinal digestion, bioavailability and the search for the active form in the organism. Finally, incorporation to the developed ingredients into a final product, stability of the peptides to technological processes applied in the food industry and stability during self-life of the product will be also considered. In order to illustrate these aspects, several examples of ingredients will be shown. For instance, the identification of novel antihypertensive peptides in a casein hydrolysate will be presented together with the evaluation of the activity on animal models and clinical studies.