A review on natural molecules as pancreatic lipase inhibitor

This review highlights the current research on bioactive compounds derived from both plant and microbial sources that have been studied for their ability to inhibit pancreatic lipase. Obesity is a leading risk factor for cardiovascular, metabolic, and endocrine disorders. Despite considerable progress in public health education and the development of pharmacological treatments over the past two decades, obesity rates remain alarmingly high. One approach to combating obesity involves targeting pancreatic lipase, the enzyme responsible for digesting and absorbing dietary fats, a key contributor to excess calorie intake. Edible plants and food materials, being of primary concern, have been extensively researched for their potential anti-obesity effects, particularly for their ability to inhibit pancreatic lipase, allowing their incorporation into daily diets. Various classes of natural products, including alkaloids, carotenoids, glycosides, polyphenols, polysaccharides, saponins, and terpenoids, have been thoroughly investigated, with lipophilic compounds from microbial sources showing the strongest inhibitory effects. Natural products always are an inspirational source for the development of new types of therapeutics. Despite this scenario, only orlistat is in clinical use. Thus, there is a huge call for newer leads from the natural sources and subsequently to develop them as new anti-obesity therapeutics. Natural compounds and dietary phyto-molecules have an advantage of biological friendliness and chemo-diversity. Many reported natural products, particularly the phenolics, terpenes and saponins have already shown profound inhibition of pancreatic lipase. Although, research is continually going on in the development of pancreatic lipase inhibitors from nature, unfortunately none has reached to the clinical use.