Health impact of carrageenan and its application in food industry: a review

Abstract

Carrageenan is used widely in food products especially for gelling, thickening, emulsifying agents, and to stabilize the food properties which is extracted from red and purple seaweeds that contain the mixture of polysaccharides. Based on the sulfate content, carrageenan is divided as kappa-carrageenan, iota-carrageenan, and lambda carrageenan. Even though it is used widely in the food industry, there is controversy about the health effects of using carrageenan in the food products such as may cause inflammation, glucose intolerance, insulin resistance, gastrointestinal ulcerations, and could damage the digestive system. According to this condition it is suggested to limit the usage of carrageenan in the food industry. The objective of this paper is to discuss the impact to health and application of carrageenan in the food industry.

A Review of Patents and Innovative Biopolymer-Based Hydrogels

“…Industrially obtained carrageenans are most frequently a combination of a few carrageenans types, with κand ιcarrageenans mixtures being the most usual [4]. Carrageenans are used in the food industry [160][161][162] and in some biomedical and pharmaceutical uses such as wound healing [163,164], controlled drug release [165], cartilage scaffold and 3D bioprinting and tissue engineering [166] thanks to their biocompatibility [8].…”

Modulating Ionic Linkages in the Heterocyclic Sulfated Polysaccharide Carrageenan for Enhanced Selectivity Against Amelanotic Melanoma Cells

“…[1,2] In this pool, the polymer and grafted polymer with naturally derived source-based drugs have been attractive for the betterment of the drug in terms of safety profile. [3] In search of a better drug candidate for skin cancer, the iota carrageenan is used because of the two sulfated groups (Figure 1) present in the heterocyclic core of the carrageenan, [4] The carrageenan, derived from marine sources, is commonly employed as a thickening agent in the food [5,6] and pharmaceutical [7,8] industries. Different types of carrageenan, such as kappa and gamma, are routinely exploited for this purpose.…”