The Role of Plant-derived Products in Pancreatitis: Experimental and Clinical Evidence

Pancreatitis is a gastrointestinal disease with a worldwide sharp surge during the past decade. Pancreatitis includes acute and chronic subtypes, which are graded based on the amount of pancreatic inflammation. Phytoconstituents represent a promising class of therapeutic agents with wide acceptability not only based on folk practices but sound presence of pharmacological and molecular evidences. Growing research evidence indicates that different molecular mechanisms are involved in their protective effect. Many phytoremedies have been tried for the treatment of pancreatic injuries and have shown success in preclinical animal models of pancreatitis. The literature was largely collected through PubMed and Google scholar database. A large proportion of phytochemicals targets the inflammatory cascade and modulates the overtly acting redox balance among which nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells is the key molecule. Inhibition of apoptosis (artemisinin, embelin), inflammasome (withaferin A), neutrophil rolling (fucoidan), Ca+2 release (caffeine), mitogen activated protein kinase (guggulsterone) and many other novel mechanisms apart from antioxidant effect have been postulated behind the protective effect of phytoconstituents. The present review deals to fill the gap of hitherto unavailable comprehensive review on various plant products screened for the treatment of pancreatitis. The possible mechanistic profile of these phytochemicals is summarized. Copyright (c) 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.