Therapeutic Potential of Medicinal Plants in the Management of Lifestyle Disorders
Abstract
Growing worldwide incidence of lifestyle disorders‚ such as type 2 diabetes mellitus‚ obesity‚ hypertension‚ dyslipidemia‚ cardiovascular disease (CVD)‚ and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)‚ along with psychosocial stress-related metabolic syndromes‚ correlates with sedentary lifestyles‚ high-caloric diets‚ chronic psychosocial stressors‚ poor sleep‚ and food and physical environment․ Medicinal plants have long been customary medicine for all systems‚ and they have increasingly been found to have complementary potential for bioactive compounds with preventive‚ therapeutic‚ and risk-lowering effects․ The present study includes 85 references on plant-origin pharmaceuticals/studies on phytochemicals‚ functional foods and other natural products in lifestyle-induced diseases and was conducted based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) narrative․ Articles were subject to selection based on plant species‚ plant part‚ phytochemical class, therapeutic action‚ mechanism‚ and metabolic/cardiometabolic parameters․ Many plant extracts including Momordica charantia‚ Trigonella foenum-graecum‚ Allium sativum‚ Curcuma longa‚ Withania somnifera‚ Terminalia arjuna‚ Moringa oleifera‚ Ocimum sanctum‚ Cichorium intybus‚ Andrographis paniculata‚ Picrorhiza kurroa and Glycyrrhiza glabra may have a combination of one or more of the following actions: insulin signalling‚ antioxidant‚ inhibition of pro-inflammatory mediators and cytokines‚ lipid metabolism‚ pancreatic lipase inhibition‚ hepatoprotection‚ Vaso protection‚ mitochondrial biogenesis and a stress response․ There are major barriers to clinical use due to unreliable botanical authentication‚ the lack of standardization and dose-response studies‚ weak quality of clinical studies‚ risk of herb-drug interactions and inadequate pharmacovigilance․ The review concludes that medicinal plants have serious potential as evidence-based complementary therapy for lifestyle diseases‚ but require additional clinical research‚ standardized formulations‚ safety monitoring‚ and integration with lifestyle modification and conventional medicine before they can be used in practice․
