Inflammation: A Multidimensional Insight on Natural Anti-Inflammatory Therapeutic Compounds

Derailed inflammation causes severe damage to the normal tissues resulting in various pathological conditions such as auto-inflammatory disorders, neurodegenerative diseases and cancer. Cure of inflammatory diseases is a big challenge. Medicinal herbs used traditionally represent the best option for obtaining effective anti-inflammatory therapeutics. Present review provides a thorough insight about various pathways, consequences and therapeutic strategies of inflammation with prime focus to expose indigenous anti-inflammatory herbal compounds along with their structures and diverse range of mechanisms of action. Over hundred medicinal plants with scientifically reported anti-inflammatory properties were reviewed. Different parts of the plants like roots, stem, bark, leaves, flowers and seeds contain active compounds with potential anti-inflammatory properties. Such compounds act at multiple targets in the inflammatory response pathways and regulate multitude of chemical mediators, enzymes, genes or cellular functions to alleviate inflammation. Although a large number of antiinflammatory herbal compounds have been isolated but the mechanism of action of bulk of compounds has not been elucidated comprehensively. Besides there is need for conducting well designed clinical trials so that the promising compounds could be used as effective antiinflammatory therapeutic agents in future.