Fresh living Arthrospira as dietary supplements: Current status and challenges

Fresh living Arthrospira as dietary supplements: Current status and challenges Ma, Zengling; Ahmed, Faruq; Yuan, Bo; Zhang, Wei Background Arthrospira (Spirulina) spp. has long been consumed as a dietary supplement that provides rich natural nutrients consisting of 60–70% proteins including essential amino acids, vitamins, and some minerals. The currently available Spirulina products in the market are mainly hot and spray-dried and their nutritional values are significantly compromised due to degradation of the heat-sensitive bioactive components. Scope and approach This commentary provides a critical view on the differences in main nutritional composition between dried and fresh living Arthrospira. In addition, the current R&D advances in the development of fresh living Arthrospira as a dietary supplement including the cultivation system, preservation and storage, product development, nutritional and functional properties and food safety were critically discussed. Key findings and conclusions Fresh living Arthrospira can better maintain their nutritional, functional, and health values, and therefore could be developed for a new range of Arthrospira derived products. However, the cultivation system that could ensure the food safety and long-term storage technologies to preserve the cell viability in different product formulations are still under development for expanding the commercial applications. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This author accepted manuscript is made available following 12 month embargo from date of publication (April 2019) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policy