Natural Antioxidants as Additional Weapons in the Fight against Malarial Parasite

Abstract

Background: All currently available antimalarial drugs are developed from natural prod-uct lineages that may be traced back to herbal medicines, including quinine, lapachol, and artemis-inin. Natural products that primarily target free radicals or reactive oxygen species, play an im-portant role in treating malaria. Objective: This review analyses the role of antioxidative therapy in treating malaria by scavenging or countering free radicals and reviews the importance of natural plant extracts as antioxidants in oxidative therapy of malaria treatment. Methods: The search for natural antioxidants was conducted using the following databases: Re-searchGate, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, and Bentham Science with the keywords malaria, reac-tive oxygen species, natural antioxidants, and antiplasmodial. Conclusion: This study reviewed various literature sources related to natural products employed in antimalarial therapy directly or indirectly by countering/scavenging reactive oxygen species pub-lished between 2016 till date. The literature survey made it possible to summarize the natural prod-ucts used in treating malaria, emphasizing botanical extracts as a single component and in associa-tion with other botanical extracts. Natural antioxidants like polyphenols, flavonoids, and alkaloids, have a broad range of biological effects against malaria. This review is pivoted around natural anti-oxidants obtained from food and medicinal plants and explores their application in restraining reac-tive oxygen species (ROS). We anticipate this article will provide information for future research on the role of antioxidant therapy in malaria infection.