The Potential of Members of the Apple Sub-Family Maloideae Against Obesity and Metabolic Disorders: A Review

Abstract

Metabolic disorder, and obesity in particular, is a global epidemic among the world's population and is a complex multifactorial health problem. Obesity is associated with serious health risks like diabetes, coronary heart disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, hyperlipidemia, and hyperglycemia disorders and has shown a steady increase in morbimortality indicators. Many drugs have been approved for effective treatment of metabolic disorders and their symptoms, but the cost on the health system and on the individual patient is extremely high. Therefore, an adjunctive treatment for managing obesity and metabolic disorder could be in the use of medicinal plants and functional foods, which could reduce the cost as well as reduce the side effects of these medications. Traditional herbal medicines and functional foods have become the subject of global importance, with both medical and economic implications. The apple subfamily Maloideae includes commercially and medicinally valuable fruits like apples, pears, loquat, quince, and hawthorn, and many other plants. This subfamily has a distinctive fruit, the pome, with characteristic antioxidant content. This review summarizes the recently published research, preclinical data, brief phytochemistry, and pharmacology on 5 Maloideae genera to underscore their potential as adjunctive therapy against obesity and metabolic disorder and future research opportunities.