User:Yy446/sandbox

Application: Seaweed as A Potential Source for Functional Food
The rise of utilizing bioactive compounds from marine organism like seaweed as a potential source for functional food can be traced back in the Asian history and tradition of using marine plants as folk medicine to treat disease. That fosters intensive research done on marine organisms like seaweed for scientific support of their functional uses in addition to their nutritional values and tastes which put an increasing emphasis on the importance of managing dietary intake of functional component to target and prevent chronic diseases. Seaweed has been known as one of edible marine plant food for human consumption. It has been researched as a potential source for functional food due to its unique metabolites to survive in the vulnerable marine system without defense system like human do. One potential functional use of seaweed has been studied widely in recent years is its anticancer and antioxidant activities. Potential compounds that have documented to show a link to anti-tumor ability include sulfated polysaccharides, phlorotannins and carotenoids. In addition to anticancer property, other functional use of algae compound in tackling human chronic diseases include prevent cardiovascular related disease by lowering cholesterol and countering hypertensive effect.

The practical application of using seaweed as an element for functional food lies under its wide availability and cost-effectiveness. Seaweed can survive under a wide range of ecological niches across the globe and is dertermined to be a sustainable food source. Along with natural growth, there is a long history of commercial harvest of seaweed with expanding demanding over the last fifty years. Countries involved in commercial farming of seaweed is recorded to be 35 which spread across all regions, climates and hemispheres. Major producer of edible seaweeds are in East Asia including China and Japan. The large production and availability thus provide sources for commercial use of seaweed with further process and distribution.

Seaweed's acceptability among consumers are another component in considering its application as a potential source of functional food. Generally, Seaweeds as a vegetative source would be related to subjective human health.In addition, seaweed, as an authentic source of proteins that is environmental friendly in the sense of harvest compared to meat source, can be used to target consumers that are looking for those characteristics. In terms of concern over consumption of seaweed, the toxic metals and traces including Al, Cd and Pb from seaweed using different cultivation method and from variety of locations should be tested and monitored before processing to ensure safety and consumer's health condition.

Potential Topic to Expand for NS1150
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flu_season

This article is about Flu Season and I pick this article because it is the most curious topic that people might search to find more details on and its past history through online sources like wikipedia. Also, I found it is interesting because this wikipedia (english version) has a bar on top said that the main perspective and example are in US setting and doesn't represent worldwide view. However, flu season is a global problem just right now. It really affects a wide range of population while the information might not be updated really often to unfold the whole picture of flu season. I did preliminary searching on New York Times Health Section and the article name is 'This Flu Season Is Now the Worst in Years. Here’s Why.' (1/18/2018) It is rated class with mid importance. It cited heavily on the latest information and statistics from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the infection rate is currently around 7.7 percent which is close to 2009” swine flu” pandemic. Also, the hospitalization rate for flu this season at some point was also the highest ever recorded. That shows the severity of the ongoing flu season and also shows that this article is with notability. More details have been enclosed by CDC. Also, I did some systematic/literature review search on the topic of flu season. There are articles about influenza transmission on aircrafts. Also, people are most curious about what kind of nutritional support to potentially prevent or relief the flu. I noticed there are a tons of popular online platforms that published a lot of dietary supplement or dietary related suggestion during this flu season with evidence to back up but it is hard to ensure its credibility so I think it might be helpful to find more credible and reliable sources on this area and add to the flu season about potential dietary support and maybe we can say those are only suggestive without scientific and clinical  research to backup so it is better be careful with those health claims and recipes on major health blogs or other popular sources.

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_food

This article is about Functional Food and I pick this article because it is a hot topic recent year in food industry. People are always more willing to take food instead of medicine for their health. That’s why more and more people would be interested in functional food and might search online for definition and application about functional food. Wikipedia might be a start place for people to look at it. Also, I am a food science major so I am really interested in this field and might want deepen my knowledge on that. It has been rated as Start-Class with Mid-importance under the WikiProject Food and drink/WikiProject Alternative medicine. Currently, it only contains definition, industry, see also, references and external links and on the talk section there are only few edits about origin of term, minor issue with redirection. However, there is no any description on the development of functional food especially in recent 3 years. We can probably update about current American development on functional food and current functional food type available in market. Also, different large companies are currently under product development about functional food with extensive research support on functional food. Japan is one of the countries that has developed very well on their functional food regarding weight loss, diabetes, beauty and so on. We can probably organize some literature review to show the product development trend or latest research on functional food. (ex: use of curcumin in food for functions; probiotics). Also, sections like consumer behavior or consumption data toward functional foods might also be added. Moreover, some big general topic regarding benefits, concerns and challenges of functional foods might also be organized from literature review to give audience a general and neutral idea about functional foods. I did preliminary research on literature review on worldwide consumption, food ingredients for functional food, biotechnology in functional food. For consumer section, the literature review divide it into four section personal, psychological, cultural & social and relating to the functional food product which is really helpful in directing people toward the development of functional food.

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy

This article is about Entomophagy and I pick this article because eating insects is a hot topic recent year in food industry regarding the perspective of sustainable eating habits and food security (bringing waste to something we can eat). Also, many commercialized food products have been on the market like cookie made with insect flour and other insect protein contained packaged food. Thus, it would be important to let people know about this new concept and the safety, health and nutrition of such a novel diet. It has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale with high-importance under the WikiProject Food and drink and listed B class under high importance under WikiProject insects. Also, under talk section, to-do list for entomophagy, it specifically listed “article requests: Nutritional content of insects”. For preliminary search, I researched several popular products using insects like high protein cricket powder’s description and consumer review. I also searched several literature review on nutritional perspective of insect food and its comparison to other kind of food. It is amazed to find that there are many research support on the fact that insects ‘protein content is very high and even though many of them has low level of tryptophan or lysine, they are rich in other essential amino acid. Many of the protein source from insects are also digestible and mineral contents are also high for many categories. There are also information about PUFA and fiber regarding insects. There are also some findings regarding the future trend of edible insects that might be possible to expand.

Potential Sources to Use For Research Topic on Seaweed as a Functional Food
Source 1: The first source exemplifies a present study of the link between compounds from algal extraction and its functional use for anticancer ability. To be specific, the study tested

G. corticata methanol extract (GCME) from gulf algae agains main human cancer cells, thus proposing its use as a potential for functional food.

Source 2: The second source shows the current research trend toward development of dietary medicine using elements from natural world without any toxic compounds as side effect. Plants are one major source that has a long history of been extracted and used for treating variety of diseases. Among the plants, the marine algae has stand out due to the fact that its unique metabolites to survive in the vulnerable marine system without defense system like human.

Source 3: Algal sulfated polysaccharides, among one of marine based polysaccharides have been uncovered to have anticancer ability in additional to other functional properties like gut micro ecology, antioxidant and other chronic diseases.

Source 4: It shows Asian countries have a long history of using bioactive compounds from marine organism as folk medicine to treat disease in addition to the seafood consumption. Intensive research has done on fish and other marine organisms to discover the myth.