Plant Nutrition for Human Health: A Pictorial Review on Plant Bioactive Compounds for Sustainable Agriculture

Abstract

Is there any relationship between plant nutrition and human health? The overall response to this question is very positive, and a strong relationship between the nutrition of plants and humans has been reported in the literature. The nutritional status of edible plants consumed by humans can have a negative or positive impact on human health. This review was designed to assess the importance of plant bioactive compounds for human health under the umbrella of sustainable agriculture. With respect to the first research question, it was found that plant bioactives (e.g., alkaloids, carotenoids, flavonoids, phenolics, and terpenoids) have a crucial role in human health due to their therapeutic benefits, and their potentiality depends on several factors, including botanical, environmental, and clinical attributes. Plant bioactives could be produced using plant tissue culture tools (as a kind of agro-biotechnological method), especially in cases of underexploited or endangered plants. Bioactive production of plants depends on many factors, especially climate change (heat stress, drought, UV radiation, ozone, and elevated CO2), environmental pollution, and problematic soils (degraded, saline/alkaline, waterlogged, etc.). Under the previously mentioned stresses, in reviewing the literature, a positive or negative association was found depending on the kinds of stress or bioactives and their attributes. The observed correlation between plant bioactives and stress (or growth factors) might explain the importance of these bioactives for human health. Their accumulation in stressed plants can increase their tolerance to stress and their therapeutic roles. The results of this study are in keeping with previous observational studies, which confirmed that the human nutrition might start from edible plants and their bioactive contents, which are consumed by humans. This review is the first report that analyzes this previously observed relationship using pictorial presentation.

Nano-Restoration for Sustaining Soil Fertility: A Pictorial and Diagrammatic Review Article

“…The soil system represents one of the main natural resources that supplies human needs for food, feed, fiber, fuel, and more [1,2]. Agroecosystems are crucial to guaranteeing human life because of the interactions among their compartments, which include soil, water, plants, microbes, humans, and animals [3].…”

“…The relationship among different nexuses and their link to soil and water has been widely investigated, such the systems of soil-water-climate change [11], water-land-energy-food [12,13], soil-food-environmenthealth [14], sustainable water-energy-environment [15], water-food-energy-climate [16], water-energy-waste [17], water-energy-food [18][19][20], water-food-land-ecosystem [21], water-energy-carbon [22], soil health-human health [23], and soil-water-plant-human [24]. Photographic or pictorial articles can be highly effective at communicating these complex nexuses [2]. This has led to several recent articles that have used illustrations and/or photographs to highlight topics such as smart agriculture [25], soil and humans [26], management of salt-affected soils [27], the comparison between higher plants and mushrooms [28], nano-farming [29], nano-grafting [30], and the soil-water-plant-human nexus [24].…”