Enzymes are biologically active complex protein molecules that catalyze most chemical reactions in living organisms, and their inhibitors accelerate biological processes. This review emphasizes medicinal food plants and their isolated chemicals inhibiting clinically important enzymes in common diseases. A mechanistic overview was investigated to explain the mechanism of these food bases enzyme inhibitors. The enzyme inhibition potential of medicinal food plants and their isolated substances was searched in Ovid, PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus, and Google Scholar. Cholinesterase, amylase, glucosidase, xanthine oxidase, tyrosinase, urease, lipoxygenase, and others were inhibited by crude extracts, solvent fractions, or isolated pure chemicals from medicinal food plants. Several natural compounds have shown tyrosinase inhibition potential, including quercetin, glabridin, phloretin-4-O-β-D-glucopyranoside, lupinalbin, and others. Some of these compounds' inhibitory kinetics and molecular mechanisms are also discussed. Phenolics and flavonoids inhibit enzyme activity best among the secondary metabolites investigated. Several studies showed flavonoids' significant antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities, highlighting their medicinal potential. Overall, many medicinal food plants, their crude extracts/fractions, and isolated compounds have been studied, and some promising compounds depending on the enzyme have been found. Still, more studies are recommended to derive potential pharmacologically active functional foods.
Keywords: Enzyme inhibition; flavonoids; functional foods; natural products; nutritional plants; phytochemicals.