Tropical fruits from Australia as potential treatments for metabolic syndrome

Abstract

Australia has a unique and diverse flora, including indigenous fruits, used by Australian Aboriginals for food and medicines for up to 45,000 years as well as recently introduced fruits for commercial production. However, this range of fruits has not led to the development of functional foods, for example for chronic inflammatory diseases such as metabolic syndrome including obesity, hypertension, fatty liver and diabetes. This review examines the potential of tropical and subtropical fruits from Australia to be used as functional foods for metabolic syndrome, including Davidson's plum, Queen Garnet plum, durian, litchi, breadfruit, jackfruit, mangosteen, papaya, jabuticaba, coffee and seaweed. Preclinical studies have defined potential responses of these functional foods in metabolic syndrome but the usefulness in humans with metabolic syndrome requires clinical studies which are scarce in the relevant literature. Overall, these Australian examples show that tropical fruits can provide functional foods to decrease chronic inflammatory diseases.

Keywords: Australia; Fruits; Functional foods; Metabolic syndrome; Obesity; Tropics.