Phytochemicals in Skeletal Muscle Health: Effects of Curcumin (from Curcuma longa Linn) and Sulforaphane (from Brassicaceae) on Muscle Function, Recovery and Therapy of Muscle Atrophy

Abstract

The mobility of the human body depends on, among other things, muscle health, which can be affected by several situations, such as aging, increased oxidative stress, malnutrition, cancer, and the lack or excess of physical exercise, among others. Genetic, metabolic, hormonal, and nutritional factors are intricately involved in maintaining the balance that allows proper muscle function and fiber recovery; therefore, the breakdown of the balance among these elements can trigger muscle atrophy. The study from the nutrigenomic perspective of nutritional factors has drawn wide attention recently; one of these is the use of certain compounds derived from foods and plants known as phytochemicals, to which various biological activities have been described and attributed in terms of benefiting health in many respects. This work addresses the effect that the phytochemicals curcumin from Curcuma longa Linn and sulforaphane from Brassicaceae species have shown to exert on muscle function, recovery, and the prevention of muscle atrophy, and describes the impact on muscle health in general. In the same manner, there are future perspectives in research on novel compounds as potential agents in the prevention or treatment of medical conditions that affect muscle health.

Advances in relieving exercise fatigue for curcumin: Molecular targets, bioavailability, and potential mechanism

“…Curcumin (C 21 H 20 O 6 ) is a hydrophobic polyphenol that originates from the roots of some plants in the ginger and Araceae families (Wen et al, 2023). Curcumin is a diketone pigment composed of two o-methylated phenols and a β-dione functional group, which is rare in the plant kingdom (Vargas-Mendoza et al, 2022). The two hydrophobic phenyl domains of curcumin are connected by a flexible linker, the phenyl ring of which can participate in π-π van der Waals interaction with the aromatic amino acid side chain.…”

“…Due to curcumin's ability to bind to various molecular targets to regulate the properties of signaling pathways and the increasingly extensive research on improving the bioavailability of curcumin, it has a positive impact on alleviating fatigue. There are four possible mechanistic pathways through which curcumin alleviates exercise fatigue: oxidative stress, inflammation, metabolite accumulation, and energy metabolism (Figure 3) (Campbell et al., 2021; Ray et al., 2021; Stohs et al., 2020; Vargas‐Mendoza et al., 2022; Volpe‐Fix et al., 2023). Additionally, more and more studies have found that curcumin also has a positive effect on relieving fatigue in terms of gut microbiota (Li et al., 2021; Scheiman et al., 2019; Stohs et al., 2020; Yi‐Ming et al., 2020).…”

A Review on Phytopharmacological Properties of Caesalpinia crista

“…Curcumin has important biological functions and future application prospects [17,30] . TGF-β/Smad pathway was involved in cell growth, differentiation, migration and apoptosis [20,31] .…”