Medicinal foods and plants with antiaging properties: A review of in vitro and in vivo studies

Abstract

Aging is a natural process by which organisms experience physiological decline leading to susceptibility to morbidity and mortality. There are no known antiaging drugs but there is a myriad of medicinal foods and plants that have been used in managing the state. Several studies have also been conducted on the antiaging properties of medicinal plants and foods, but these pieces of information are scattered. This paper attempts to integrate available information on medicinal foods and plants as well as isolated chemical compounds with antiaging potential. It also provides different models (in vitro and in vivo) that are used in evaluating the potency of natural products. Current literature on the subject was obtained from different databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, and Web of Science. A total of 119 medicinal plants and 50 isolated compounds were reported in this study. Different models were also used to evaluate the efficacy of these plants which include in vitro (enzyme inhibition, use of cell lines) and in vivo (Caenorhabditis elegans, yeast, fruit fly, mice, and rats) models. It can be concluded that medicinal foods and plants are reservoirs of potential therapeutic agents that can efficiently modulate metabolic processes implicated in aging and its associated disorders.