INTRODUCTION
According to a report by the All-Russian Health-care Organization, the mortality from cardiovascular disease in Russia is the highest in the world. Deaths caused by cardiovascular diseases account for 57% of total mortality in Russia, with 1.3 million people dying from these diseases every year. Coronary heart disease and hypertension remain the most common diseases of the cardiovascular system. High blood pressure re-mains unnoticed very often due to the lack of clinical manifestations, and therefore it is a risk factor for the development of coronary heart disease, congestive heart failure, stroke, and disturbances of the function of kidneys and other organs [1].
The development of technology for the manufactu-ring of therapeutics and functional foods intended for the prevention of cardiovascular disease is of especial importance. Functional foods of plant and animal origin play an important role in the prevention of disease. Functional foods are systematically used in the form of special diets capable both of preventing disturbances of physiological functions and metabolic processes in the body and of improving human health due to the presence of essential nutrients. These food products play a considerable role in the prevention of various diseases. Proper nutrition including nutriceu-ticals and functional foods enhances immunity and defense capacity of the body and activates anabolic processes, having a general positive effect on health [2].
The development and implementation of food for persons who are prone to or suffering from hyper-tension is currently in progress in Russia. Notably, foods enriched in peptides, individual amino acids, or fatty acids, as well as dairy products obtained using selected strains of lactic acid bacteria, and other products of this type are entering the market of functional foods and dietary supplements [4]. At this, the interest towards the structure and function of low molecular weight peptides produced by controlled enzymatic hydrolysis of high-quality proteins fulfilling a range of specific biological functions in the body is increasing.
A large number of biologically active peptides that are either naturally present in food or formed during enzymatic or chemical (acid) hydrolysis of the dietary proteins was identified during the past decade. Natural processing of dietary protein in the digestive tract (and preceding fermentation in the case of pre-fermented foods) enables the release of these peptides from the proteins and their functioning as independent regulatory units with hormone-like activity. A consi-derable number of such peptides possessing a wide range of biological functions has been identified already [3, 4].
Raw materials of animal origin, namely, milk and dairy products, are among the sources of biologically active peptides. However, such peptides can be isolated from a variety of foods such as egg, fish, shellfish, grains (rice, wheat, buckwheat, barley, and maize), soybeans, and radishes. Functional proteins from milk have an exceptionally broad range of biological activity. Bioactive peptides can be formed from both casein (αs, β, k, and κ-casein) and whey proteins (lactoferrin and immunoglobulin, α-lactalbumin, and β-lactog-lobulin) [5]. Use of dietary products enriched with peptides derived from milk proteins and capable of blocking the conversion of the inactive peptide angiotensin I into the active compound angiotensin II is an efficient and safe way of lowering blood pressure. Nitric oxide activates the enzyme guanylate cyclase and promotes the formation of cyclic guanosine monophosphate, which has vasodilatory activity due to its effect on smooth muscle cells [1]. Supplementation of food with functional whey casoplatelins possessing an antithrombotic effect reduces the risk of complications in patients suffering from hypertension and hypercholesterolemia [7].
