Nelumbo nucifera, or sacred lotus, has been valuable for us to use as vegetable, functional food, and herb medicine for over 2,000 years. The purpose of this article is to systematically review the traditional/modern uses, chemical compositions and pharmacological activities on different parts of N. nucifera. Traditionally, this plant has been used to treat chronic dyspepsia, hematuria, insomnia, nervous disorders, cardiovascular diseases, and hyperlipidemia. Now, phytochemical investigations on different parts of N. nucifera have indicated a wide spectrum of at least 255 constituents belonging to different chemical groups, including proteins, amino acids, polysaccharides, starch, flavonoids, alkaloids, essential oils, triterpenoids, steroids, and glycosides. Meanwhile, its pharmacological activities, including anti-obesity, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, cardiovascular, hepatoprotective, hypoglycemic, hypolipidemic, antitumor, memory-improving and antiviral activities, have also been reviewed, together with its applications in health food industry and clinic uses of its single plant or herbal formulae. Herein, this review will provide state-of-the-art overview on its traditional and modern uses in food industry and medicines, together with the comprehensive profiles of phytochemicals, and health promoting bioactivities of this valuable plant. In addition, the new perspectives and future challenges in the research on lotus are also outlined.

Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) leaves, a traditional Chinese medicinal herb, are rich in flavonoids. In an effort to thoroughly analyze their flavonoid components, macroporous resin chromatography coupled with HPLC-MS/MS was employed to simultaneously enrich and identify flavonoids from lotus leaves. Flavonoids extracted from lotus leaves were selectively enriched in the macroporous resin column, eluted subsequently as fraction II, and successively subjected to analysis with the HPLC-MS/MS and bioactivity assays. Altogether, fourteen flavonoids were identified, four of which were identified from lotus leaves for the first time, including quercetin 3-O-rhamnopyranosyl-(1→2)-glucopyranoside, quercetin 3-O-arabinoside, diosmetin 7-O-hexose, and isorhamnetin 3-O-arabino- pyranosyl-(1→2)-glucopyranoside. Further bioactivity assays revealed that these flavonoids from lotus leaves possess strong antioxidant activity, and demonstrate very good potential to be explored as food supplements or even pharmaceutical products to improve human health.

Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) and caffeine constitute the most effective ingredients of weight loss in tea. However, whether combination of EGCG and caffeine exhibits anti-obesity synergy remains unclear. Here, we showed low-doses of EGCG and caffeine used in combination led to synergistic anti-obesity effects equivalent to those of high-dose EGCG. Furthermore, combination treatment exhibited a synergistic effect on altering gut microbiota, including decreased Firmicutes level and increased Bifidobacterium level. Other notable effects of combination treatment included synergistic effects on: increasing fecal acetic acid, propionic acid, and total SCFAs; decreasing expression of GPR43; and increasing microbial bile salt hydrolase gene copies in the gut, facilitating generation of unconjugated BAs and enhancing fecal BA loss. Additionally, combination treatment demonstrated synergistic effects toward increasing the expression of hepatic TGR5 and decreasing the expression of intestinal FXR-FGF15, resulting in increased expression of hepatic CYP7A1. Thus, the synergistic effect may be attributed to regulation of gut microbiota and BA metabolism.

Duchesnea indica (D. indica) is an important traditional Chinese medicine, and has long been clinically used to treat cancer in Asian countries. It has been described previously as a rich source of phenolic compounds with a broad array of diversified structures, which are the major active ingredients. However, an accurate and complete phenolic profiling has not been determined yet. In the present work, the total phenolic compounds in crude extracts from D. indica were enriched and fractionated over a macroporous resin column, then identified by HPLC-ESI-MS/MS and ESI-IT-MS (ion trap MS). A total of 27 phenolic compounds were identified in D. indica, of which 21 compounds were identified for the first time. These 27 phenolic compounds encompassing four phenolic groups, including ellagitannins, ellagic acid and ellagic acid glycosides, hydroxybenzoic acid and hydroxycinnamic acid derivatives, and flavonols, were then successfully quantified using peak areas against those of the corresponding standards with good linearity (R² > 0.998) in the range of the tested concentrations. As a result, the contents of individual phenolic compounds varied from 6.69 mg per 100 g dry weight (DW) for ellagic acid to 71.36 mg per 100 g DW for brevifolin carboxylate. Not only did this study provide the first phenolic profiling of D. indica, but both the qualitative identification and the subsequent quantitative analysis of 27 phenolic compounds from D. indica should provide a good basis for future exploration of this valuable medicinal plant.