Tropical Fruits: Bioactive Properties and Health Promoting Benefits in Chronic Disease Prevention and Management

Abstract

Chronic disease conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, cancer, obesity and oxidative stress continue to be a significant concern among nations of the world, which is threatening the economic and social prosperity of the people. This calls for urgent action among relevant stakeholders to explore productive and sustainable ways of addressing the incidence of these life-threatening health conditions. While medicines have been used in the treatment and management of chronic diseases, its adverse side effects over time leave much to be desired. This calls for a novel and safer approach. Tropical fruits contain a rich repository of bioactive compounds. Reports from several studies in literature indeed showed that bioactive compounds present in tropical fruits are capable of not only addressing the prevalence of chronic disease conditions, but they also have minimal to no known side effect. The broad objective of this journal article is to review the bioactive and health-promoting benefits of tropical fruits in chronic disease prevention and management. The valuable knowledge derived from this review will enable food and pharmaceutical companies to explore the production of novel functional foods/neutraceuticals and potent medicines respectively from tropical fruit sources that can be useful in chronic disease prevention and management.