The Traditional Uses, Phytochemistry and Pharmacology of Genus Hibiscus: A Review

Abstract

The genus Hibiscus belongs to the mallow family, Malvaceae comprising of about 275 species growing in tropical and sub tropical areas. The various species of genus Hibiscus have been used as traditional medicine all over the world. There are numerous reports of their traditional medicinal uses in various countries like India, Nigeria, China, and Srilanka etc. to cure various ailments such as hypertension, cardiac diseases, stomach-ache, urine problems, skin diseases and many more. Based on the historical knowledge, various pharmacological and phytochemical studies on some species of the genus Hibiscus have been done. Nevertheless, there are no up-to-date articles published which can provide an overview of pharmacological effects of the genus Hibiscus. Therefore, the main objective of the review article is to provide a systematic comprehensive summary of traditional uses, phytochemistry and pharmacology of the genus Hibiscus and to build up a correlation between its traditional ethano-botanical uses and pharmacological activities so as to find some advanced research opportunities in this field. The given information on the ethano-botanical uses, phytoconstituents and various medicinal properties of the genus Hibiscus was gathered from the online scientific databases through search in Google, Google Scholar, Science Direct, NCBI, Pubmed, Springer Link, Research Gate by using some keywords as. Besides these websites other published literature and unpublished Ph.D. thesis and M.Sc. dissertation were also consulted. Previously conducted research revealed that the genus contains good amount of phytoconstituents such as antioxidants, phytosterols, saponins, lignin, essential oils, glycosides, and anthocyanins etc. Presence of these bioactive compounds in the crude extracts of the plants make it suitable for various medicinal properties like anti inflammatory, anti-diabetic, anti-obesity, anti-proliferative, anti-ulcer, hypersensitive, hypolipidemic, hepatoprotective, nephroprotective and many more. Additionally, this review article showed that mainly two species of the genus i.e. H. rosa-sinensis and H. sabdariffa have been explored for their pharmacological activities. There are few reports on some other species like H. tiliaceous, H. microanthus, H. asper, H. acetosella. This review highlights the medicinal potential of the plant Hibiscus due to its unique blend of phytochemicals. These phytoconstituents can be further assessed and subjected to clinical trials for their proper validations. Although large amount of the data regarding pharmacological effects has already been added to the existing reservoir but still potential of certain species like H. radiatus, H. hirtus, H. moschetous, H. trionum and many more is not yet unveiled and can be considered as future prospects that need to be worked out.  Graphical Abstract: