Fonctionnalité des aliments : un concept à redéfinir ?

The first functionality of food is to nourish humans. However, some food can nourish specific functions: this is the second functionality to be rediscovered. For ages, some foods play a specific role either as a symbol, often a religious one, or to modulate a physiological function. The concept of functional food started with the scientific demonstration of the dissociate diet that was able to enhance muscular functions in the 1960s, followed by the Japanese FOSHU concept and then a European consensus on functional food. Probiotics are used to illustrate this rediscovered concept: food can help to add life to years.