Piper Betle: Retrospective Value of Green Gold

Abstract

Even after having social, cultural and medicinal importance, Piper betle is considered the neglected green gold of India. One of the main reasons for that is, though its cultivation is responsible for providing livelihood to about 20 million people, enough attention is not given to the improvement of end-to-end process of cultivation, starting from variety identification, transportation, waste management, and foreign export policies. In the last 50 years, there have been several studies carried out to find out the phytochemicals present in betel extract, its essential oil and its associated uses. However, there has been little effort in the direction of understanding the mechanism behind its many benefits, including its medicinal properties. To utilise the full potential of betel leaves, a special translational research centre should be established. Studies using Omics approaches like genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics should be done. This will allow us to study pathways related to phytochemical production, identification of molecular markers for improved breeding, manipulation of gene expression related to important bioactive compounds having medicinal properties, perfumes, food and the impact of betel in the human body. In this study, we tried to comprehend the uses and overall work done till date on betel and how there is a future need to improve on many fronts to make its benefits reach common people.