Omnifarious fruit polyphenols: an omnipotent strategy to prevent and intervene diabetes and related complication?

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic syndrome which cannot be cured. Recently, considerable interest has been focused on food ingredients to prevent and intervene in complications of diabetes. Polyphenolic compounds are one of the bioactive phytochemical constituents with various biological activities, which have drawn increasing interest in human health. Fruits are part of the polyphenol sources in daily food consumption. Fruit-derived polyphenols possess the anti-diabetic activity that has already been proved either from in vitro studies or in vivo studies. The mechanisms of fruit polyphenols in treating diabetes and related complications are under discussion. This is a comprehensive review on polyphenols from the edible parts of fruits, including those from citrus, berries, apples, cherries, mangoes, mangosteens, pomegranates, and other fruits regarding their potential benefits in preventing and treating diabetes mellitus. The signal pathways of characteristic polyphenols derived from fruits in reducing high blood glucose and intervening hyperglycemia-induced diabetic complications were summarized.

Keywords:

• Anti-diabetic mechanisms
• diabetes mellitus
• fruit polyphenols
• hyperglycemia
• signal pathway

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This review was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant number 31771978, the Six Talent Peaks Projec in Jiangsu Province Grant number NY-095, the National First-class Discipline Program of Food Science and Technology Grant number JUFSTR20180201, the Innovation and Exploration Fund of State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University Grant number SKLF-ZZB-202102, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities Grant number JUSRP21802.