This article is part of a themed section on Principles of Pharmacological Research of Nutraceuticals. To view the other articles in this section visit http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bph.v174.11/issuetoc.

Natural compounds, in recent years, have attracted significant attention for their use in the prevention and treatment of diverse chronic diseases as they are devoid of major toxicities. Boswellic acid (BA), a series of pentacyclic triterpene molecules, is isolated from the gum resin of Boswellia serrata and Boswellia carteri. It proved to be one such agent that has exhibited efficacy against various chronic diseases like arthritis, diabetes, asthma, cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, etc. The molecular targets attributed to its wide range of biological activities include transcription factors, kinases, enzymes, receptors, growth factors, etc. The present review is an attempt to demonstrate the diverse pharmacological uses of BA, along with its underlying molecular mechanism of action against different ailments. Further, this review also discusses the roadblocks associated with the pharmacokinetics and bioavailability of this promising compound and strategies to overcome those limitations for developing it as an effective drug for the clinical management of chronic diseases.

The past few decades have witnessed widespread research to challenge carcinogenesis; however, it remains one of the most important health concerns with the worst prognosis and diagnosis. Increasing lines of evidence clearly show that the rate of cancer incidence will increase in future and will create global havoc, designating it as an epidemic. Conventional chemotherapeutics and treatment with synthetic disciplines are often associated with adverse side effects and development of chemoresistance. Thus, discovering novel economic and patient friendly drugs that are safe and efficacious is warranted. Several natural compounds have proved their potential against this dreadful disease so far. Magnolol is a hydroxylated biphenyl isolated from the root and stem bark of Magnolia tree. Magnolol can efficiently prevent or inhibit the growth of various cancers originating from different organs such as brain, breast, cervical, colon, liver, lung, prostate, skin, etc. Considering these perspectives, the current review primarily focuses on the fascinating role of magnolol against various types of cancers, and the source and chemistry of magnolol and the molecular mechanism underlying the targets of magnolol are discussed. This review proposes magnolol as a suitable candidate that can be appropriately designed and established into a potent anti-cancer drug.

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Extensive research during last 2 decades has revealed that most drugs discovered today, although costs billions of dollars for discovery, and yet they are highly ineffective in their clinical response. For instance, the European Medicines Agency has approved 68 anti-cancer drugs, and out of which 39 has reached the market level with no indication of increased survival nor betterment of quality of life. Even when drugs did improve survival rate compared to available treatment strategies, most of these were found to be clinically insignificant. This is a fundamental problem with modern drug discovery which is based on thinking that most chronic diseases are caused by alteration of a single gene and thus most therapies are single gene-targeted therapies. However, extensive research has revealed that most chronic diseases are caused by multiple gene products. Although most drugs designed by man are mono-targeted therapies, however, those designed by “mother nature” and have been used for thousands of years, are “multi-targeted” therapies. In this review, we examine two agents that have been around for thousands of years, namely “guggul” from Commiphora and Boswellia. Although we are all familiar with the search engine “google,” this is another type of “guggul” that has been used for centuries and being explored for its various biological activities. The current review summarizes the traditional uses, chemistry, in vitro and in vivo biological activities, molecular targets, and clinical trials performed with these agents.

Altogether, the present study reveals the enormous potential of curcumin, a natural, non-toxic, multi-targeted agent in overcoming drug resistance in cancer cells and sensitizing them to chemotherapeutic drugs.

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