Islas, J.F.; Acosta, E.; G-Buentello, Z.; Delgado-Gallegos, J.L.; Moreno-Treviño, M.G.; Escalante, B.; Moreno-Cuevas, J.E. An Overview of Neem (Azadirachta Indica) and Its Potential Impact on Health. Journal of Functional Foods 2020, 74, 104171, doi:10.1016/j.jff.2020.104171.
Islas, J.F.; Acosta, E.; G-Buentello, Z.; Delgado-Gallegos, J.L.; Moreno-Treviño, M.G.; Escalante, B.; Moreno-Cuevas, J.E. An Overview of Neem (Azadirachta Indica) and Its Potential Impact on Health. Journal of Functional Foods 2020, 74, 104171, doi:10.1016/j.jff.2020.104171.
Islas, J.F.; Acosta, E.; G-Buentello, Z.; Delgado-Gallegos, J.L.; Moreno-Treviño, M.G.; Escalante, B.; Moreno-Cuevas, J.E. An Overview of Neem (Azadirachta Indica) and Its Potential Impact on Health. Journal of Functional Foods 2020, 74, 104171, doi:10.1016/j.jff.2020.104171.
Islas, J.F.; Acosta, E.; G-Buentello, Z.; Delgado-Gallegos, J.L.; Moreno-Treviño, M.G.; Escalante, B.; Moreno-Cuevas, J.E. An Overview of Neem (Azadirachta Indica) and Its Potential Impact on Health. Journal of Functional Foods 2020, 74, 104171, doi:10.1016/j.jff.2020.104171.
Abstract
Plant-based alternative medicine is normally grounded on empiric cultural perception, as the main objective, these practices intent to either maintain good health or to provide a route to turn-the-tide on a specific disease or ailment. Amongst the thousands of plants that have been used and studied, Neem (Azadirachta indica) seems to have a very interesting tale to tell, since its properties to ward-off certain diseases have overtime, and in a rigorous way, been proven. The preceding concise review is a collection of some of the most relevant studies today, not only focusing on the health benefits obtained by its use, but digging into the molecular mechanisms of how the properties come about. In particular, we take a look over antioxidant properties and how these mediate and mitigate important molecules such as IL-6 and TNF-, leading the way in reducing systematic damage by oxidative stress. Further, we relate this oxidative reduction to other systemic diseases such as cancer and diabetes, as these are currently becoming the most rampant killers. As of yet not all is known about the different ways of extracting or the total composition of an extract, as these may be from different parts of the plant. Therefore, we also allude to an important cautionary view where toxicological effects and conflicting outcomes arise. Overall, presented results show a great potential for the different extracts of Neem as their antioxidant activity can be taken advantage off, and potentially used in modern medicine.
Keywords
neem extracts; nutritional components; systemic diseases
Subject
Medicine and Pharmacology, Dietetics and Nutrition
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
