Combination of marine bioactive compounds and extracts for the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases

Abstract

BackgroundIn recent years, marine-based functional foods and combination therapy are receiving greater recognition for their roles in healthy lifestyle applications and are being investigated as viable and effective strategies for disease treatment or prevention.Aim of the reviewThis review article presents and discusses the relevant scientific publications that have studied the synergistic and additive effects of natural marine bioactive compounds and extract combinations with anti-obesity, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and chemopreventive activities in the last two decades. The paper presents the mechanism of action and health benefits of developed combinations and discusses the limitation of the studies. Furthermore, it recommends alternatives and directions for future studies. Finally, it highlights the factors for developing novel combinations of marine bioactive compounds.Key scientific concepts of reviewCombination of marine bioactive compounds or extracts affords synergistic or additive effects by multiple means, such as multi-target effects, enhancing the bioavailability, boosting the bioactivity, and neutralizing adverse effects of compounds in the mixture. For the development of marine-based combinations, there are key points for consideration and issues to address: knowledge of the mechanism of action of individual compounds and their combinations, optimum ratio and dosing of compounds, and experimental models must all be taken into account. Strategies to increase the number and diversity of marine combinations, and further development of marine-based functional foods, are available. However, only a small number of natural marine bioactive combinations have been assessed, and most research has been focused on fish oil and carotenoid synergy. Therefore, more research and resources should be spent on developing novel marine bioactive combinations as functional foods and nutraceuticals.

Searching for Novel Sources of Hydrogen Sulfide Donors: Chemical Profiling of Polycarpa aurata Extract and Evaluation of the Anti-Inflammatory Effects

“…Many marine bioactive compounds have been shown to possess peculiar biological properties, but only a few have been tested in combination [77]. Here, for the first time, the potential of marine extract as a source of H 2 S has been demonstrated, highlighting its anti-inflammatory activity.…”

“…Despite this, the isolation of pure metabolites, responsible for a certain biological effect, is a compelling challenge. However, several studies have shown that the overall activity of extracts as well as derived fractions can be higher than the summative activities of each compound due to synergistic, additive, or antagonistic effects [39,77]. For this reason, it is not rare to observe the loss of activity after the efforts spent for the isolation of individual constituents.…”

Effects of Cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanicum) Extract on Adipocyte Differentiation in 3T3-L1 Cells and Lipid Accumulation in Mice Fed a High-Fat Diet

“…Therefore, the AMPK, ACC, and CPT-1 pathways stimulate free fatty acid oxidation [24]. When the AMPK pathway activates, it prohibits the sterol regulatory element binding protein-1 (SREBP-1c), which regulates the genes for lipid production that are related to fatty acid synthase (FAS) [25]. Furthermore, another prior study showed that the liver's production of lipids is reduced when the SREBP-1c and FAS pathways are downregulated [26].…”

Combination Effect of Extracts and Pure Compounds of Endophytic Fungi Isolated from Sungkai (Peronema canescens) Leaves on Antioxidant Activity

“…In actuality, a mixture of chemicals having additive, antagonistic, or synergistic effects produces an extract's total activity. In certain cases, an extract's activity shows more effective result than an equivalent dosage of the separated component (Ebrahimi et al, 2023;Falakdin et al, 2023;Vaou et al, 2022). As a result, while treating medicinal plants, plant extracts or a mixture of extracts from several plants are frequently used; no one bioactive molecule is used.…”