Update on bioactive peptides after milk and cheese digestion

•Milk products containing high value proteins are an ideal source for bioactive peptides.•Milk- and cheese-derived peptides have different health beneficial functions in clinical trials.•Bioactive peptides were detected in human plasma at physiological levels.

Bioactive peptides represent an interesting alternative to pharmaceutical drugs without known side effects, as they are present in a variety of protein-rich foods that are consumed on a daily basis. Most of these peptides are embedded and inactive in their parental protein and must be cleaved during food-processing, bacterial fermentation, or gastrointestinal digestion. In recent years, bioactive peptides have attracted increasing interest in the research community, and many health-promoting effects have been attributed to specific amino acid sequences. This mini-review provides a summary of the most important biological functions that have been described for bioactive peptides in various review papers, and an update on findings from the last two years for specific milk- and cheese-derived bioactive peptides.