Key words: nutrition, functional foods, gastrointestinal health, metabolic health

"Nutritional strategies to improve gastrointestinal and metabolic health: Exploring the effects of functional foods"

Nutrition plays an important role in the development of chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and inflammatory bowel disease, by influencing metabolic processes and various functions of the gastrointestinal tract. These chronic metabolic and/or inflammatory diseases are associated with a lower quality of life and an increased risk of disease-related comorbidity. However, nutrition can also be used as a strategy to improve general health, well-being, and the course of chronic diseases. A class of nutrition specifically designed to improve health by targeting one or more of the processes involved in disease development and progression are ‘functional foods’. In this thesis, the effects of various ingredients that can be used to formulate supplements or functional foods on intestinal and metabolic health are assessed.

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