Inhibitors of pancreatic lipase: state of the art and clinical perspectives

Obesity is a disorder of lipid metabolism and continues to be a global problem, ranking fifth for deaths worldwide. It also leads to diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, musculoskeletal disorders and some types of cancer. Obesity is regarded as the output of a long-term imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure. Digestion and absorption of dietary lipids by pancreatic lipase, a major source of excess calorie intake, can be targeted for development of anti-obesity agents. Being the major factor of concern, food materials and edible plants are most widely studied for the anti-obesity activity, so that they can be incorporated in the routine diet. In this review, an attempt was made to present a current scenario of the bioactive compounds from plant and microbial origin that have been investigated for their pancreatic lipase inhibition. Compounds belonging to various classes of natural products such as alkaloids, carotenoids, glycosides, polyphenols, polysaccharides, saponins and terpenoids are well studied while lipophilic compounds from microbial sources are the most active against the pancreatic lipase. Few studies on the synthetic analogues, structurally similar to the triglycerides have been described in the review. Despite of tremendous research on the finding of potential pancreatic lipase inhibitor, very few compounds have entered the clinical studies and no new molecule after orlistat has been marketed. Along with HTS based screening, detailed structure-activity relationship studies on semi-synthetic and synthetic derivatives might also provide a direction for the development of potential lead(s) or pharmacophore for pancreatic lipase inhibition in order to treat and/or prevent obesity and related disorders.