Biswanath Dinda - Natural Products in Obesity and Diabetes: Therapeutic Potential and Role in Prevention and Treatment

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The field of natural products science is immense, fascinating, and interesting because of structural diversity, versatile biological activities, and occurrence of natural molecules from various sources, as well as the specific metabolic origin, fate, and cellular biotransformation of these phytogenic compounds. These natural metabolites have defensive roles against harmful pathogens and environmental stress to protect parent organisms under various environments. Various herbal extracts have been used in the treatment of different diseases and ailments since the stone-age period. In many countries, these natural products have been used in their traditional folk medicine based on ethnobotanical knowledge. Various polyherbal formulations have been found to have potential efficacy in the treatment of obesity and diabetes. Most of these polyherbal formulations have poor scientific data on the composition and contents of bioactive phytochemicals and the mode of action in the treatment of diseases. As a result, the practitioners have no idea of the effective doses and treatment period of these phytomedicines. Most of currently prescribed synthetic oral drugs for the treatment of obesity and diabetes and their associated complications on their long-term use by the patients caused many adverse side effects. For this reason, most of leading pharmaceutical industries and research institutes have paid attention to the discovery of natural drugs as an alternative to currently used synthetic drugs. Recently, only a few natural and semi-natural molecules are in the global market for the treatment of these diseases. The major shortcomings of natural drugs in clinical trials in humans and in treatment are the lack of scientific data on the effective doses and the composition and contents of active phytochemicals and their active metabolites in disease-specific organs in humans, in addition to the requisite dose for a patient to cure the disease. Recently introduced omics technologies have been applied to evaluate the effective doses as personalized medicine for the treatment of the present global pandemic of obesity and diabetes.

The contributors of this monograph have highlighted the various aspects of natural products, particularly the impact of multi-omics biotechnology, gut microbiota dysbiosis, and cultivation and harvesting factors of plants and dietary vegetables and fruits on the composition and concentrations of anti-obese and antidiabetic phytochemicals present in them. Moreover, the contributors have elaborately discussed the different aspects of many natural molecules having potential anti-obesity and antidiabetic activities, such as their major therapeutic targets, pharmacokinetics, metabolism, nanoformulations benefits and clinical progress. It will help for extensive studies of these natural molecules on toxicity and efficacy in future in human mimic animal models and humans and for large-scale application in global market as safe and low-cost drugs. In spite of sincere efforts for the publication of this monograph in correct form, any printing and other errors in this edition due to overlooking are regretted.

I hope this monograph will be useful for the practitioners in the field of traditional folk medicine, growers of fruits, vegetables, and crops, and students and researchers in the field of natural science and pharmaceutical chemistry.

I will appreciate valuable suggestions and comments from the readers of this book for its improvement in the next edition.

I am grateful to the publishers for their kind support and interest in the publication of this monograph. I am also grateful to Prof. A Basak, University of Ottawa, Canada, and Prof. G. H. Maity, Jadavpur University, India, for their kind help in providing some articles in the preparation of the manuscript of this monograph.

I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to all the contributors of this book including editorial and technical management staff for their sincere efforts in this endeavor.