Another important application of Hydroxytyrosol is its use as a nutraceutical compound in the pharmaceutical industry. A nutraceutical compound can be defined as: "dietary supplement of a concentrated bioactive natural substance usually present in the food. It must show favorable effects on human health and they are usually presented in a non-nutritional matrix (pills, capsules, powder, etc.)".

Nutraceuticals differ from medicines in that the latter are usually synthetic products and do not have a natural biological origin. A functional food and a nutraceutical do not intend to cure any disease, but prevent it within a healthy diet.

In summary, nutraceutical products are those that include bioactive compounds from food but are commercialized in a pharmaceutical form and contain concentrations of these substances in greater quantity than they would have in the food from which they come.