Multitasking bamboo leaf-derived compounds in prevention of infectious, inflammatory, atherosclerotic, metabolic, and neuropsychiatric diseases

Bamboo is a medicinal plant, and has long been used as a traditional/folk medicine and a food preservative in Japan. Bamboo leaf contains many active ingredients with medicinal benefits. In particular, recent studies demonstrated that bamboo leaf extract and its constituents have great potential to prevent infectious, inflammatory, cardiovascular, metabolic, and neurological/neuropsychiatric diseases. In this review, we summarize the prophylactic and possible therapeutic effects of bamboo leaf extract and its constituent compounds against these disorders. The effects of the extract are explainable in part by the effects of some constituent compounds: p-coumaric acid, myricetin, orientin, stachyose, and vitexin. Moreover, coenzyme Q10, an anti-oxidative constituent, alleviates oxidative stress which underlies the common pathogenic mechanisms of the development of diabetic complications, atherosclerosis and periodontal disease. Some flavonoids contained in bamboo leaf, such as orientin and vitexin, have been reported to regulate gut microbiota responsible for maintaining whole-body functions, suggesting a possible interaction between bamboo leaf extract and probiotics. Thus, bamboo leaf is a valuable natural resource for the development of multiple pharmacotherapies.