Nutrition and Applications of Rice Bran Oil: a Mini-overview

Rice bran oil is a healthy oil from many aspects.The oil has a balanced fatty acid profile comparing with many other vegetable oils.The key difference is the minor components or micronutrients or unsaponifiable matters contained in the oil that are very special and in larger percentages.The oil contains more than 1.5%oryzanol that gives nutritional and pharmaceutical functions from the studies so far.More studies are needed to demonstrate the wide functions in many aspects.The oil also contains large percentage of phytosterols which received huge amount of studies for nutritional applications.Furthermore,the oil contains tocopherols and tocotrienols,in which for the later particularly it gives many special functions including prevention of breast cancers for example.When the oil is properly processed and used in foods,those functions are more and more demonstrated in nutritional or biological studies.Thus the oil in food and pharmaceutical applications is in exploring both in academic studies and industrial practice.In this work,an overview of such progress is given.