Fruit and vegetable peels: Paving the way towards the development of new generation therapeutics

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), diabetes mellitus (DM), cancer, and thyroid abnormalities are major health problems prevalent around the world and are responsible for a large portion of morbidity and mortality out of health problems overall. Advances in genomics and proteomics in recent years have led to an explosion in the number of possible therapeutic targets and drug candidates through use of molecular approaches, chemical synthesis, traditional medicinal chemistry, and phyto-chemistry and through the exploration of novel herbal preparations. However, virtually none of these candidates are devoid of potential adverse drug reaction(s) or undesirable side effects. Therefore, the clear need is to look to alternative ways to develop novel drug candidates with fewer side effects and less cost. Interestingly, the last few years have seen an increase in the number of available reports on fruits and vegetable peels, and particularly on their biological activity, their content of different bioactive compounds, their chemical characterization, understanding of their structure-activity relationships, isolation and purification of commercially important chemicals without using high throughput techniques, etc. Therefore, research in the field of fruit and vegetable peels should present immense possibilities for drug discovery and development of cost-effective therapies that have fewer or practically no side effects. This virtual explosion of interest in fruit and vegetable peels as a source of medicinal and nutritional value has led to the present review.