ABSTRACT
Nutraceuticals present in modern foods provide extra health benefits beyond basic nutrition. They are foods or part thereof which offer health benefits with the intermediation and therapy of a disease. Nutraceuticals help to progress the health by altering body functions. Over the last several years, people have become more concerned to know about the natural way of keeping them safe and healthy through nutritionally rich foods. Since then, a number of new food elements considered as being nutraceuticals have been introduced to the food industry and pharmaceutical market. These comprise various ingredients like low-calorie sugars, enzymes, and B vitamins, with a confirmed favourable effect on human health. Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) have been established to be ideal cell factories for the synthesis of these essential nutraceuticals. The nutraceuticals contain several probiotic organisms like Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium species and their metabolites signify a novel research range that advances gut health by altering the gut microbiome conformation. The proficiency of nutraceuticals on various chronic diseases such as diabetes and diverse cancer types should be accepted as immense chances in their therapy. They have the ability to play a vital role in forthcoming developments of therapeutics. In this chapter, an attempt has been made to discuss LAB as a source for nutraceuticals, and the metabolic engineering of LAB for the metabolite production as nutraceuticals on an industrial scale. In this way, the efficient production of metabolites as food products with the beneficial effect as nutraceuticals for the consumers can be understood.
