Phytochemical and Biological Activities of Lagenaria siceraria: An Overview

Lagenaria siceraria commonly known as bottle gourd, is a medicinal plant widely cultivated in African and Asian countries. It is official in Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia. It is traditionally used as a nutritive agent having cardioprotective, cardiotonic, general tonic, diuretic, aphrodisiac, antidote to certain poisons, scorpion strings and alternative purgative. It cures pain, ulcers, fever and is used for pectoral cough, asthma and other bronchial disorders. It also has various biological activities such as: anthelmintic, hepatoprotective, antimicrobial, antihyperlipidemic, antihyperglycemic, analgesic and anti-inflammatory activity. Lagenaria siceraria contains a number of primary and secondary metabolites. It contains important terpenoids, sterols, flavonoids, alkaloids, phenolics and phenolic acids. The information in this review is retrieved from the database search including Egyptian Knowledge Bank (EKB), PubMed and Google scholar. From the literature, it was clearly revealed that L. siceraria showed a broad spectrum of biological and pharmacological activities due to the presence of various secondary metabolite. In the light of the above-mentioned multiple benefits of bottle gourd, the plant is regarded as a natural guard against diseases. L. siceraria possesses many important chemical constituents, which require further research to explore the medicinal value of this species.