A review on anti-nutritional factors: unraveling the natural gateways to human health

Abstract

Humans are constantly facing multiple health challenges from both communicable and non-communicable diseases that significantly affect their health. Additionally, drug resistance or failure has made the situation even worse and poses serious challenges for researchers to develop new drugs. Hence, to address these problems, there is an urgent need to discover and develop timely and long-term-based therapeutic treatments from different sources. One such approach is harnessing the potential of plant secondary metabolites. Plants have been utilized for therapeutic purposes in addition to being used for nutritional benefits. In the last two decades, plant-based drug developments have been one of the effective means of treating human diseases owing to their multiple functions. More recently, anti-nutritional factors (ANFs) have emerged as one of the important targets for novel plant-based drug development due to their multifaceted and potential pharmacological properties. However, their anti-nutritional properties have been the major setback for their limited success in the pharmacological sector. In this review, we provide an overview of ANFs and their beneficial roles in preventing human diseases with multiple case studies. We also highlight the recent developments and applications of ANFs in the food industry, agriculture, and pharmaceutics with future perspectives. Furthermore, we evaluate meta-analyses on ANFs from the last 30 years in relation to their function in human health benefits. This review is an endeavor to reevaluate the merit of these natural compounds and explore their potential for both human and animal health.

Examination of Primary and Secondary Metabolites Associated with a Plant-Based Diet and Their Impact on Human Health

“…Many plant sources of protein contain antinutritional factors such as trypsin inhibitors, β-mannans, and glucosinolates, which reduce amino acid digestibility [52]. Some examples of plants that produce these antinutritional factors are soybean, quinoa, almonds, pomegranate, wheat, green tea, and cabbage [53]. One in vitro study of the digestibility of plant proteins compared to milk protein showed that the digestion of legume protein isolates, except for soybean, was similar to that found for milk proteins [51].…”

Saffron, a Potential Bridge between Nutrition and Disease Therapeutics: Global Health Challenges and Therapeutic Opportunities

“…As per the reports of the World Health Organization (WHO), human beings are paying most of their attention to the use of herbal medicines as they have the least side effects [ 90 , 91 ]. A huge number of medicinal plants are currently being investigated to explore natural products as the best alternative to unsafe drugs [ 92 , 93 , 94 ].…”

The Non-Nutritional Factor Types, Mechanisms of Action and Passivation Methods in Food Processing of Kidney Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.): A Systematic Review

“…In daily life, the consumption of unprocessed and improperly processed KB products is very likely to cause food poisoning. As research on non-nutritional factors has advanced, studies have reported that many compounds found in lower concentrations, often referred to as plant bioactive components or anti-nutritional factors, can have beneficial effects in preventing coronary atherosclerotic disease and various cancers [12][13][14]. The existence of non-nutritional factors such as toxic proteins and toxic alkaloids reduces the nutrient absorption rate of KBs and KB products, affecting the health of humans and animals [15].…”