ELUCIDATING THE PHYTOCHEMICAL PROFILE AND THERAPEUTIC POTENTIALS OF MORINGA OLEIFERA: AN INTEGRATIVE APPROACH

Medicines are a substance that serves nutritional, therapeutics, or preventative purposes while the term "herbal medicine" is used to describe plant-based products with therapeutics, preventative, or dietary benefits. This review intends to provide a detailed description related to pharmacological activities and phytoconstituents present in Moringa oleifera Lam. The study was performed by literature survey of original research articles published in Pubmed, Science Direct, Web of Science, Scopus and Google, using keywords such as “Moringa oleifera”, “phytoconstituent” and “pharmacological activities.” Moringa oleifera is extensively appreciated for its therapeutic qualities, because in the traditional medical system, almost all tree parts, including the roots, bark, gum, leaves, fruits, flowers, seeds, and seed oil are utilized to cure a variety of illnesses like relieves in high cholesterol, colitis, rheumatism, diarrhoea, swollen glands, headaches, hemorrhoids, fever, constipation, bronchitis, and infections of the ears and eyes. Different scientific studies have been conducted on Moringa oleifera such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anticancer, antidiabetic, antibacterial, antifungal, hepatoprotective, antifertility, antiasthmatic, anti-colitis, anti-ulcer activity, etc. This pharmacological activity of Moringa oleifera is thought to be the presence of the following main phytoconstituents as alkaloids (moringin, niazirin, and niazimicin), flavonoids (procyanidin, isoquercitrin, rutin, astragalin, and apigenin), phenolic acids (gallic acid, syringic acid, and benzoic acid), fatty acids (9-octadecenoic acid and arachidic acid), lipid compounds (fatty acids, fatty alcohols, triacylglycerols, and saturated hydrocarbons), terpenoids and carotenoids (lutein, carotene, and polyprenol), sterols (β-sitosterol), phenols (eugenol), vitamins and antioxidants (ascorbic acid) and pigments (chlorophyll A), etc. In this study, we conclude that many phytoconstituents in Moringa oleifera are responsible for producing various types of pharmacological activities.