Therapeutic Effects of Curcumol in Several Diseases; An Overview

Abstract

Curcumae Rhizoma, also known as Ezhu is a traditional Chinese medicine that has been used for many centuries against several diseases. The rhizome of the plant is composed of curcuminoids (curcumin, demethoxycurcumin, and bisdemethoxycurcumin), and essential volatile oils including curcumol, curdione, and germacrone. While curcuminoids have been extensively studied for their antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anticancer properties, the therapeutic efficacy of curcumol is still emerging. Recent studies have shown anticancer properties of curcumol against multiple solid tumors such as breast, colorectal, head and neck, and lung adenocarcinomas. The underlying anti-tumor mechanisms revealed inhibition of several signaling pathways (NF-κB, MAPK, PI-3K/AKT, and GSK-3β) associated with cell proliferation, survival, anti-apoptosis, invasion and metastasis. Besides curcumol, extracts from the Curcumae Rhizoma roots possess many other terpenoids such as β-elemene, δ-elemene, germacrone, furanodiene and furanodienone with known anticancer properties. In this review, we comprehensively focused on the composition of Curcumae Rhizoma essential oils, their structure, isolation and therapeutic uses of curcumol to aid in the improvement and development of novel drugs with minimal cytotoxicity, enhanced efficacy, and less cost.

Keywords:

• Antioxidant
• apoptosis
• cancer prevention
• dietary intervention
• oxidative stress
• transcription factors

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr. Vineeta Tanwar (Research Scientist, Ohio State University, Ohio, Columbus, USA) for help in English editing and valuable suggestions to improve the quality of the manuscript.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, A.B., M.A.M. S.H., and S.N.; writing—original draft preparation, A.B., S.H., S.N., and M.A.M.; writing—review and editing, M.H., S.U., G.S., R.K., and S.Y.; supervision, A.B., M.A.M., M.H., and S.U.

Disclosure Statement

All authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by a grant from the Sidra Medical and Research Center (5011041002) to Ajaz A. Bhat. This study was funded by Sidra Medicine, Doha, Qatar.