Biomedical and Antioxidant Potentialities in Chilli: Perspectives and Way Forward

Abstract

Worldwide, since ages and nowadays, traditional medicine is well known, owing to its biodiversity, which immensely contributed to the advancement and development of complementary and alternative medicines. There is a wide range of spices, herbs, and trees known for their medicinal uses. Chilli peppers, a vegetable cum spice crop, are bestowed with natural bioactive compounds, flavonoids, capsaicinoids, phytochemicals, phytonutrients, and pharmacologically active compounds with potential health benefits. Such compounds manifest their functionality over solo-treatment by operating in synergy and consortium. Co-action of these compounds and nutrients make them potentially effective against coagulation, obesity, diabetes, inflammation, dreadful diseases, such as cancer, and microbial diseases, alongside having good anti-oxidants with scavenging ability to free radicals and oxygen. In recent times, capsaicinoids especially capsaicin can ameliorate important viral diseases, such as SARS-CoV-2. In addition, capsaicin provides an ability to chilli peppers to ramify as topical agents in pain-relief and also benefitting man as a potential effective anesthetic agent. Such phytochemicals involved not only make them useful and a much economical substitute to wonder/artificial drugs but can be exploited as obscene drugs for the production of novel stuffs. The responsibility of the TRPV1 receptor in association with capsaicin in mitigating chronic diseases has also been justified in this study. Nonetheless, medicinal studies pertaining to consumption of chilli peppers are limited and demand confirmation of the findings from animal studies. In this artifact, an effort has been made to address in an accessible format the nutritional and biomedical perspectives of chilli pepper, which could precisely upgrade and enrich our pharmaceutical industries towards human well-being.

Bioaccessibility, Bioavailability, Antioxidant Activities and Health Beneficial Properties of Some Selected Spices

“…As chili pepper contains high level of vitamin C, E, anthocyanin, and phenolic compounds it showed strong antioxidant activities in vitro, in vivo, and clinical studies [103][104][105][106][107]. From earlier research studies it was demonstrated a positive correlation between phenolic content and antioxidant potential with strong radical scavenging activities in ABTS, DPPH, and FRAP assays [103].…”

“…It has been shown that capsaicin could reduce inflammations in different animal models and human trials. Capsacin has been reported to have anti-inflammatory activities by inhibiting the NO, IL-6, and TNF-α in LPS-induced in RAW 264.7 cells [107,108]. Capsaicin reduced the inflammatory responses by inhibiting the pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin 1β (IL-1β) and tumor nuclear factor-kappa (NF-κ) [109].…”

Determination of the Antioxidant Capacity of Puerarin and Its Effect on Cholinesterases by in vitro and in silico Methods

“…[27] When these compounds come into contact with oxidizable substances, they can significantly slow or prevent the oxidation of these substances, even at low concentrations. [28] Puerarin (Figure 1) is derived from the root of the kudzu plant, whose latin name is Pueraria lobata. [29] Puerarin has a wide range of uses such as vasodilation, cardioprotection, neuroprotection, antioxidant, alleviating pain, promoting bone formation, and reducing insulin resistance.…”

“…[27] The working principle of antioxidants is to reduce or prevent attacks on cells by neutralizing free radicals. [28] For this reason, as mentioned above, the importance of natural antioxidants has increased a lot and studies on this have gained momentum. [29] Alzheimer's disease, which is one of the diseases caused by ROS, does not have a definite treatment today, only drug treatment is applied to reduce the course of the disease.…”

“…From a nutritional perspective, an antioxidant is defined as a compound that acts against oxidation [27] . When these compounds come into contact with oxidizable substances, they can significantly slow or prevent the oxidation of these substances, even at low concentrations [28] …”