Bioactive Functional Foods for Cardiovascular Diseases

Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is a chronic pathological disorder regarded as a serious health concern round the globe. It is a multifactorial disease, with a range of various causative agents, among that dietary factor is considered the most important and may to a large degree determine CVD risk. Unfortunately, it has been less widely investigated. This review outlines the general aspects of CVD, epidemiology, risk factors and emphasizes the use of functional foods for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. It highlights the importance of various foods used in daily routine and their activity against CVDs particularly. Recent studies have investigated the consumption of various foods including soybeans, oats, psyllium, flaxseed, garlic, tea, fish, grapes, nuts, fruits, vegetables, chocolate and sterol ester enhanced margarine etc., on CVD patients and their role as a natural/socioeconomic cure over chemical based drugs. Adequate intake of these foods on a constant basis, help in decreasing the risk of cardiovascular disease by several potential mechanisms e.g., lowering blood lipid levels, improving arterial compliance, reducing low-density lipoprotein oxidation, decreasing plaque formation, scavenging free radicals and inhibiting platelet aggregation etc. This review not only emphasizes the dire need of exploring safe functional foods against alarming rise of CVD cases, but also provides future insight in the use of bioactive food components in CVD therapeutics, as they are cost effective and have fewer side effects.