Phytoconstituents and pharmaco‐therapeutic benefits of pitaya: A wonder fruit

Abstract

Dragon fruit has caught the attention of many researchers in the last few years because of its vast therapeutic potential. The fruit is enriched with several phytochemical constituents having tremendous pharmacological properties. It is traditionally used as a coloring agent. Some newly explored therapeutic applications include its use as an antioxidant, antimicrobial, antidiabetic, anticancer, and nutraceutical. The phytoconstituents can be extracted from flesh, peel, and seeds of the fruit. The fruit is known to be a rich source of betacyanin, vitamin C, and lycopene. The current review is focused on phytochemical constituents of dragon fruit along with its pharmacological activities. It also sheds light on the safety aspects of the fruit. The review will pave a path for researchers to study this marvel fruit further for societal benefit. Advanced research on dragon fruit will unleash many more therapeutic benefits and can give mechanistic insight about its activities. Practical applications Phytoconstituents play a vital role in the treatment of various diseases and for the improvement of human health, in general. Dragon fruit is known to be having antioxidant, anti‐microbial, anti‐diabetic, anti‐cancer applications. The fruit can also be used as a nutraceutical (functional food). To grab all the benefits from this fruit, its phytoconstituents and pharmaco‐therapeutic aspect have to be thoroughly studied. This review can be very useful for researchers across different fields like botany, agriculture, pharmacy, etc., to bridge the gap for collaborative work on dragon fruit, which will help in finding solutions for many modern diseases.

Maturation Process, Nutritional Profile, Bioactivities and Utilisation in Food Products of Red Pitaya Fruits: A Review

“…Hylocereus comprises 14 species, and they have been mainly classified by their skin and flesh colour. Hylocereus undatus (white flesh and pink skin), Hylocereus polyrhizus (red flesh and red skin, shown in Figure 1), and Hylocereus megulanthus (white flesh and yellow skin) have been the three most commonly consumed and studied pitaya species in recent years [13]. Pitaya fruit is highly perishable throughout postharvest storage due to the high moisture content present in the pulp.…”

Nutritional Analysis of Red-Purple and White-Fleshed Pitaya (Hylocereus) Species

“…Among the fruit quality characteristics, phenolic compounds, sugars, total phenol, antioxidant capacity and volatile compounds are the most important parameters [22,26,[51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64].…”

Chemical characterization, polyphenol content and antioxidant capacity of two pitahaya ecotypes (Hylocereus spp.)

“…could be responsible for the hepatoprotective properties of the fruit (Ibrahim et al., 2018), while cardenolides are well-known bioactive compounds, showing anticancer and cardiotonic properties (Verma et al, 2016). Future research should include betacyanins determination, especially for red pitahaya due to their antioxidant properties (Joshi and Prabhakar, 2020).…”

“…Pitahaya or dragon fruit is an exotic, non-climacteric fruit (Ortiz-Hernández et al, 2012), but it may behave as climacteric when collected at a high maturation state (Vásquez-Castillo et al, 2016). It shows various functional/nutraceutical characteristics (Joshi and Prabhakar, 2020), having antioxidant, antiproliferative, anti-inflammatory, chemopreventive and antidiabetic properties (Joshi and Prabhakar, 2020;Kim et al, 2011). These properties are explained by its high content of polyphenols and secondary metabolites such as steroids, triterpenes, tannins, and flavonoids (Ibrahim et al, 2018).…”