What are the functional properties of lutein?

Lutein, also known as "phytolutein", is a natural pigment widely found in bananas, kiwis, corn, marigolds and other plants. Lutein is a type of carotenoid. Natural pigments such as lutein have the advantages of bright color, strong coloring power, safety and non-toxicity, strong antioxidant ability, prevention of human aging, rich nutrition and non-scratch effect. However, since lutein cannot be produced in the human body, it must be ingested from food or supplemented, so it has attracted more and more attention.

The "lutein foods" currently popular internationally are completely free of contaminants and do not contain any artificial substances. In order to meet the needs of various health food production, research and development of broad-spectrum, efficient and safe natural functional food raw materials has become one of the hot spots in the field of functional food additive research today. As a new type of health food additive, lutein will have broad development prospects in health food processing.

• Lutein is beneficial to vision protection

Lutein has many beneficial health effects on the human body: it is beneficial to improve vision, because lutein is the precursor of VA, which can be converted into VA in the human body. The main physiological functions of lutein on the eyes are as antioxidants and photoprotective effects. The optic nerve cannot regenerate, and the rods and cones in the retina that are most susceptible to oxidative damage are the rods and cones with high polyunsaturated fatty acid content. They inhibit the formation of harmful free radicals by inhibiting oxygen free radicals. Lutein can absorb a large amount of blue light. The wavelength of blue visible light is close to that of ultraviolet light. It is the most potentially harmful light among the visible lights that can reach the retina. Before reaching the sensitive cells on the retina, the light first passes through the highest accumulation area of lutein. At this time, if the lutein content in the macula is rich, this damage can be minimized.

• Lutein has good coloring ability

Lutein also has a good coloring effect. Because of its bright yellow color, it is insoluble in water, soluble in grease and ethanol, has strong coloring power, and is resistant to light, heat, acid, and alkali. It can be widely used for coloring cakes, candies, seasonings, pickles, and feed. It can also be used for the coloring of health care products, as well as the coloring of tablet sugar coatings and capsules. Lutein has good coloring ability, stability and safety. In Europe and the United States and other countries, lutein has been listed as a food colorant, and it can be used to give food a beautiful golden color.

• Lutein has antioxidant effects

As an antioxidant, lutein can inhibit the activity of reactive oxygen species and prevent them from damaging normal cells. Lutein can inactivate linear oxygen through physical or chemical quenching, thereby protecting the body from harm and enhancing the body's immunity. The latest research shows that lutein has a protective effect on the skin, and the natural antioxidant progesterone can prevent skin damage caused by the sun's harmful rays. Cornell University research shows that progesterone can prevent the negative effects of ultraviolet light on animal skin. This further proves experimentally that lutein has skin protection and antioxidant effects.

• Lutein supports cardiovascular health

Lutein is also helpful in cardiovascular health. Recent research results suggest that lutein may be helpful in treating heart disease. The researchers found a correlation between lutein levels in the subjects' blood and artery wall thickening, and found that lutein could prevent artery wall thickening.

The key to utilizing lutein is to further apply the extracted lutein to food so that the food not only becomes beautiful and delicious, but also has beneficial functions for the human body. In some countries in Europe and the United States, lutein has been used as a healthy food with good health care functions for the human body, and has been widely praised by ordinary consumers.

• Application in eye-protecting functional foods

Foreign studies have confirmed that lutein can prevent or improve vision loss caused by age-related macular degeneration of the retina. Dr. Scott Richard of the North Chicago Medical Center Ophthalmology Clinic in the American academic publication "Journal of the American Vision Association" conducted clinical research on "aging patients with macular degeneration." The results show that taking 6 mg of lutein daily can reduce the risk of yellowing. Every year, tens of thousands of people over the age of 65 around the world suffer from blurred vision and blindness due to macular degeneration. If lutein can be supplemented in their food in time, vision degeneration and blindness caused by macular degeneration can be delayed. Therefore, it can be used as a dietary supplement material for eye care purposes.

• Application in food additives

Lutein can not only be developed into functional food itself, but can also be used as a functional food additive. HSF Biotech has launched a variety of lutein dosage forms, such as lutein CWS and lutein esters, which can be directly used as food additives.

Lutein is safe and non-toxic, has strong coloring power, low dosage, bright and natural color, no peculiar smell, and good taste. It can also be used for coloring many health care products, as well as the coloring of tablet sugar coatings and capsules. Such as edible fats, margarine, margarine, ice cream, candy, pastries, bread, instant noodles, noodles and other foods. It can also be used to color some foods that originally contain carotene, such as butter, cheese, mayonnaise, etc. It can also be used to color cold drinks and beverages, and is most suitable for juices containing Vc.

A large number of experiments in modern medicine have confirmed that lutein ester can be automatically converted into lutein in the human body, so lutein ester can be used as a new food additive like lutein. The successful extraction of lutein esters has greatly expanded the source of lutein.

• Application in anti-aging foods

In addition to being used for skin care, the antioxidant effect of lutein itself can also be used in anti-aging foods. The natural lutein contained in plants is an antioxidant with excellent performance. It has special functions such as preventing various diseases, inhibiting photosensitive oxidation of edible oils, delaying aging, and effectively scavenging free radicals in the body, thus improving people's health. The main antioxidant effect of lutein on human diseases is to prevent tissue damage, cell aging and other pathological changes caused by harmful substances "free radicals" produced during physiological metabolism in the human body. Scientists believe that human aging is largely related to the damaging effects of free radicals, and lutein has a certain inhibitory effect on free radicals. Therefore, adding a certain amount of lutein to food can help prevent a series of diseases caused by aging of human organs and keep people energetic.

• Lutein is used in foods that improve immunity

Lutein can be used to make health foods that improve immunity. Lutein also has extensive biological activities in preventing cardiovascular diseases and enhancing body immunity. Therefore, it is entirely possible to add lutein as an auxiliary material to food to make a health product that enhances the body's immunity. Professor Markin Chak of Harvard Medical School in the United States and others conducted a survey on baby food and found that the carotenoids (7.83mg/100g) content in ordinary foods was low, with lutein accounting for only 4%. Carotenoids can reduce oxidative damage to DNA. Lutein, as one of the five important carotenoids in human blood and tissues, can accelerate cell fusion and enhance the body's immunity.

Although lutein has so many health care and even therapeutic functions, currently only lutein extracted from natural plants contains biologically active substances with antioxidant effects.Natural plants rich in lutein mainly include: marigold, calendula, kiwi, pumpkin, sesame, yellow corn, etc.

HSF Biotech uses marigold with high flavin content, and covers three main lines, namely:

Lutein can be said to be a truly green and healthy food in the green era, and has very important development and utilization value. And because lutein has good heat resistance, is non-toxic and harmless, and has special physiological effects, it is in line with the development direction of "natural", "nutritional" and "multi-functional" food additives. It can be added directly to food like common food additives such as vitamins and lysine. Lutein is an important natural pigment and natural health product. It is also an important raw material for green health foods and has great commercial development value.

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