A review on the Phytochemistry and Pharmacology of Psidium guajava L. (Myrtaceae) and Future direction

Abstract

The aim of the present review is to provide information on the ethno-medical use and scientific knowledge on Psidium guajava to researchers in the field of biology, chemistry and pharmacognosy. A literature search was conducted to obtain information about the phytochemistry and pharmacology of Psidium guajava from the electronic databases like PubMed, PubMed Central, Science Direct and Google scholar. Scientific name of this plant species was used as keyword for the search, along with the terms phytochemistry and pharmacology. The chemical structure of the P. guajava naturally occurring compounds was drawn using ChemBioDraw Ultra 12.0 software package. An extensive survey of literature (Multidisciplinary advanced bibliographic surveys) revealed that  Psidium guajava L. is a good source of health promoting secondary metabolites like Flavonoids, Tannins, glycosides, terpenoids, etc. The medicinal plant Psidium guajava is reported to possess various pharmacological properties like anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, anticough, antidiarrheal, antidiabetic, antihyperlipidemic, cardioprotective,  antimutagenic, hepatoprotective and larvicidal effects. These properties are due to the presence of various phytochemicals like tannins, alkaloids, phenols, glycosides, flavonoids and steroids.The present review can therefore help inform future scientific research towards the development of novel drugs against Sickle cell Anemia because of the presence of naturally occurring triterpenoids acids like Guavacoumaric, Ursolic, 2α-hydroxyursolic, Maslinic, Asiatic, Jacoumaric, Isoneriucoumaric, Guajavanoic and Guavenoic acids.