ABSTRACT
Nutrition science during recent decades has been focused on the detection and understanding of deficiencies. With increasing knowledge of the existence and action of vitamins, specific recommendations were given with the aim of avoiding classical deficiency diseases such as xerophthalmia, beriberi, etc. A further step was the epidemiological evidence that diet contributes to the risk of certain diseases. The major finding was the correlation of a high fat intake with several kinds of cancer and cardiovascular disease. The consequences were special low-fat and low-cholesterol foods. However, the increasing knowledge about micronutrients including vitamins, minerals, and further compounds (carotenoids, flavonoids, anthocyans, etc.) on a molecular level together with results from epidemiological studies opens a new and exciting field of nutrition science, nutraceuticals (NC), as a link between nutrition and medicine.
