Natural Dietary and Medicinal Plants with Anti-Obesity Therapeutics Activities for Treatment and Prevention of Obesity during Lock Down and in Post-COVID-19 Era

Abstract

Overweight and obesity have become global epidemics, especially during the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The potential of medicinal plants as a better and safe option in treating obesity and overweight has gained attention in recent years. Obesity and overweight has become a major public health concern, and its incidence rising at an alarming rate. Obesity is one of the major types of metabolic syndrome, resulting in various types of problems such as hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, and excess fat accumulation. The current searching was done by the keywords in main indexing systems including Scopus, PubMed/MEDLINE, the search engine of Google Scholar, and Institute for Scientific Web of Science. The keywords were traditional medicine, health benefits, pharmaceutical science, pomegranate, punicalin, punicalagin, and ellagitannins. Google Scholar was searched manually for possible missing manuscripts, and there was no language restriction in the search. This review was carried out to highlight the importance of medicinal plants which are common in traditional medicinal sciences of different countries, especially Asia to prevent and treatment of obesity and overweight during the global pandemic and the post-COVID-19 era.

Therapeutic Potential of Phenolic Compounds in Medicinal Plants—Natural Health Products for Human Health

“…Phenolic compounds are known for their notable potential activity against various human viruses, and phenolic compounds also have immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory activity [ 27 ]. The most abundant phenolic compounds are phenolic monoterpenes (carvacrol and thymol) and diterpenes (carnosol, carnosic acid, and methyl carnosate), hydroxybenzoic acids ( p -hydroxybenzoic, protocatechuic, gallic, vanillic, catechol, and ellagic), phenylpropanoic acids ( p -coumaric, caffeic, rosmarinic, chlorogenic, ferulic, cryptochlorogenic, and neochlorogenic), phenylpropenes (eugenol), coumarins (herniarin and coumarin), flavanoes (naringenin, eriocitrin, naringin, and hesperidin), flavones (apigenin, apigetrin, genkwanin, luteolin, luteolin 7-glucuronide, cynaroside, scolymoside, salvigenin, and cirsimaritin), and flavanols (catechin, astragalin, kaempferol, methyl ethers, quercetin, hyperoside, isoquercetin, miquelianin, and rutin) [ 28 , 29 ].…”

Potential of enhancing anti-obesogenic agriceuticals by applying sustainable fertilizers during plant cultivation

“…Overweight and obesity are among the most challenging global health problems, with economic and social costs increasing at alarming rates worldwide (El-Shiekh et al, 2019;Karri et al, 2019;Sun et al, 2021;World Obesity, 2022). It is a multifactorial problem resulting from the excessive energy storage in the form of lipids in the adipocytes, which can lead to numerous life-threatening diseases associated with abnormal body fat accumulation, including type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular diseases, osteoarthritis, psychiatric pathologies such as depression, anxiety and mental disorders, obstructive sleep apnea, and certain types of cancer (Bautista et al, 2019;El-Shiekh et al, 2019;Islam et al, 2020).…”

“…It is a multifactorial problem resulting from the excessive energy storage in the form of lipids in the adipocytes, which can lead to numerous life-threatening diseases associated with abnormal body fat accumulation, including type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular diseases, osteoarthritis, psychiatric pathologies such as depression, anxiety and mental disorders, obstructive sleep apnea, and certain types of cancer (Bautista et al, 2019;El-Shiekh et al, 2019;Islam et al, 2020). These nutritional pathologies enormously impact people's mortality, morbidity, and quality of life (Sun et al, 2021).…”

“…Researchers have proven many plant extracts with potential preventive and therapeutic effects against obesity and negligible or null side effects (Bautista et al, 2019;Karri et al, 2019;Islam et al, 2020). Plant-derived medicines have gained much attention due to their beneficial effects on maintaining health and combating diseases; particularly, plants contain many agriceuticals with anti-obesogenic effects, including fibers, phenolic acids (e.g., coumaric, caffeic acid, and chlorogenic acids), flavonols (e.g., quercetin and kaempferol), flavones (e.g., tricetin, apigenin, and luteolin), isoflavonoids (e.g., daidzein, genistein, and glycitein), flavans-3-ol (e.g., catechin), phytosterols, anthocyanins, alkaloids (e.g., caffeine and capsaicin), curcuminoids, lignans, proteins, and fibers (El-Shiekh et al, 2019;Karri et al, 2019;Islam et al, 2020;Sun et al, 2021). Agriceuticals participate in obesity management by different mechanisms, including inhibition of appetite, lipid and carbohydrate digestion, adipogenesis and lipogenesis, promotion of lipolysis and thermogenesis, and modulation of gut microbiota, which are among the most widely studied mechanisms used to evaluate and establish the anti-obesity potential of different agents (El-Shiekh et al, 2019;Karri et al, 2019;Shang et al, 2021).…”

Active compounds of fingerroot (Boesenbergia pandurata) for obesity treatment: in silico approaches

“…Obesity is generally attributed to unhealthy eating, and a healthy plant-based diet may thus be beneficial in lowering inflammatory markers [5][6]. Besides, several studies have shown that many plants effectively prevent obesity [7], e.g., onion, Aloe vera, cumin, garcinia gummi-gutta, roselle, yerba mate, Asian lobelia, mango, and black pepper [8]. Natural products can act as anti-obesity agents through different mechanisms, including augmentation of energy expenditure, appetite suppression, and inhibitions of lipase enzyme, adipocyte differentiation, and lipid metabolism [9].…”