Medicinal plants and their inhibitory activities against pancreatic lipase: a review.
Atefehalsadat Seyedan, Mohammed Abdullah Alshawsh, Mustafa Ahmed Alshagga, Sanaz Koosha, Zahurin Mohamed
Author Affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2015 : Article ID 973143
Abstract : Obesity is recognized as a major life style disorder especially in developing countries and it is prevailing at an alarming speed in new world countries due to fast food intake, industrialization, and reduction of physical activity. Furthermore, it is associated with a vast number of chronic diseases and disabilities. To date, relatively effective drugs, from either natural or synthetic sources, are generally associated with serious side effects, often leading to cessation of clinical trials or even withdrawal from the market. In order to find new compounds which are more effective or with less adverse effects compared to orlistat, the drug that has been approved for obesity, new compounds isolated from natural products are being identified and screened for antiobesity effects, in particular, for their pancreatic lipase inhibitory effect. Pancreatic lipase inhibitory activity has been extensively used for the determination of potential efficacy of natural products as antiobesity agents. In attempts to identify natural products for overcoming obesity, more research have been focused on the identification of newer pancreatic lipase inhibitors with less unpleasant adverse effects. In this review, we consider the potential role of plants that have been investigated for their pancreatic lipase inhibitory activity.