Metabolomics perspectives on natural product interventions for alleviating cardiovascular risks

Abstract

Exploring natural products as therapeutic alternatives to synthetic drugs has garnered increasing research interest due to their reduced side effects and lower toxicity. Bioactive compounds derived from natural products exhibit a diverse range of pharmacological effects that help reduce cardiovascular risk, primarily by modulating key metabolic pathways. These natural compounds have demonstrated efficacy in mitigating cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension, hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, obesity, and liver injury by modulating metabolism within the biological systems. Mechanistically, natural products exert their effects through coordinated regulation of systemic energy homeostasis, lipidomic and phospholipid balance, amino acid metabolism, mitochondrial bioenergetics, and gut microbiota-derived metabolites. Such modulation results in measurable changes in metabolite profiles across various biological samples, including blood, urine, feces, and tissues. Among the various mechanistic pathways involved in cardiovascular regulation, the metabolic pathway offers a more dynamic and integrative perspective of disease progression and therapeutic response, enabling identification of key metabolites and biomarkers that reflect systemic physiological changes. Furthermore, metabolomics-based approaches provide powerful tools to uncover subtle biochemical alterations that may precede overt pathological changes, making it a valuable focus in natural product therapeutics in cardiovascular research. This review focuses on current evidence on metabolite alterations associated with cardiovascular risk factors and illustrates how natural products reprogram metabolic networks to mitigate disease, providing a systems-level framework for understanding their cardioprotective effects.

Keywords

Natural products / Cardiovascular risks / Metabolomics / Metabolites / Cardioprotection

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Funding

This study was funded by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia via the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS/1/2022/SKK15/UM/02/6).

Authors’ contributions

WYE contributed to the conceptualization of the study, performed the investigation, drafted the original draft, and prepared Figure 1 and 2 as well as Table 1. TSW contributed to the conceptualization of the study, drafted the original manuscript, and prepared Table 1. AKM contributed to the conceptualization of the study and drafted the original manuscript. DDM contributed to the conceptualization of the study, critically revised the manuscript, and supervised the manuscript.

Publisher’s note

The Publisher of the Journal remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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