In recent years, functional foods and bioactive components in foods have drawn a lot of attention as well as interest of food scientists, nutritionists, health professionals, and consumers. The advent of this new food category has been facilitated by increasing scientific knowledge about the metabolic and genomic effects of diet and specific dietary components on human health. The relationship between health and diet is well known and it is a main key for prevention of variety of diseases. Milk is considered as a very good source of bioactive components and it has been known to contain macro- as well as micronutrients of high nutritional and therapeutic value. Also, bioactive components have been exploited from milk and dairy products for application in functional foods and for potential pharmaceutical use. Biologically active compounds guard neonates and adults against pathogens and illnesses. Some major bioactive components of milk are derived from caseins, whey proteins, lipids, lactoferrine, vitamins, immunoglobulins and growth factors. The aim of this paper was to provide an overview and explain the health effects of already known and recently detected bioactive components derived from bovine milk on humans.; Funkcionalna hrana i bioaktivni sastojci hrane posljednjih su godina privukli veliku pažnju i zanimanje znanstvenika, nutricionista, zdravstvenih djelatnika te samih potrošača. Samo saznanje o funkcionalnoj hrani uvelike je olakšano napretkom znanosti te spoznajama o metaboličkim i genomskim utjecajem na prehranu te utjecajem određenih sastojaka hrane na ljudsko zdravlje. Poveznica zdravlja i prehrane je dobro poznata i glavni je ključ za prevenciju mnogih bolesti. Mlijeko se smatra izuzetno dobrim izvorom bioaktivnih sastojaka, a odavno je poznato da je namirnica s dobrim sastavom makro- i mikronutrijenata. Osim što se bioaktivni sastojci mlijeka prirodno nalaze u mlijeku i mliječnim proizvodima, oni se iz istih izoliraju te se koriste kao bioaktivni sastojci za proizvodnju funkcionalne hrane ili pak u farmaceutskoj industriji. Bioaktivni sastojci mlijeka imaju zaštitnu ulogu, kod novorođenčadi i odraslih, protiv patogena i bolesti. Glavni bioaktivni funkcionalni sastojci mlijeka nastaju iz kazeina, proteina sirutke, mliječne masti, laktoferina, vitamina, imunoglobulina i faktora rasta. Stoga je cilj rada bio dati pregled poznatih i onih tek nedavno detektiranih bioaktivnih sastojaka mlijeka te njihov utjecaj na zdravlje čovjeka.