Relevance of dietary glycerophospholipids and sphingolipids to human health

Abstract

Glycerophospholipids and sphingolipids participate in a variety of indispensable metabolic, neurological, and intracellular signaling processes. In this didactic paper we review the biological roles of phospholipids and try to unravel the precise nature of their putative healthful activities. We conclude that the biological actions of phospholipids activities potentially be nutraceutically exploited in the adjunct therapy of widely diffused pathologies such as neurodegeneration or the metabolic syndrome. As phospholipids can be recovered from inexpensive sources such as food processing by-products, ad-hoc investigation is warranted.

Keywords: Atherosclerosis; Milk fat globule membranes; Phosphatidylcholine; Phospholipids; Sphingolipids; Sphingosine.