Potential Benefits of Sorghum [sorghum bicolor (l.) Moench] on Human Health: A Review

Abstract

Introduction: From a nutritional perspective, sorghum is very important with respect to healthy and nutrition. Its higher proportion of slowly digestible and resistant starch components compared with other staple cereal crops. Furthermore, Sorghum is a source of some minerals, proteins (kafirins that have high degrees of polymerization, extensive disulfide bridges, strong interaction with tannins and starch makes proteins resistant to enzymatic digestion in the digestive tract) lipids, vitamins and phenolic compounds. Possessing diverse phytochemical content particularly in the bran layer (six times higher than the whole grain) and other beneficial compounds makes it more important and represents a promising opportunity to be exploited as a functional food or food ingredient and to reduce risk of non-communicable chronic diseases. Objective: To review literatures on potential health benefits of sorghum grain and understanding detailed phenolic extracts with respect to health. Method: original, adequate and recent articles on the same field were researched and conduct a comprehensive review on this topic. Thus, extraction and isolation of these compounds from sorghum is another option to fully exploit their application potential. In addition, some relevant scientific papers published in previous years were included. The article search was performed by matching the terms sorghum and Sorghum bicolor L. with a group of terms related to phenolic composition and nutritional value. The articles were screened and selected based on the title and abstract presented. Result: results of several articles showed that some sorghum varieties (black and brown sorghums) are rich in phenolic compounds, especially 3-deoxyanthocyanidins and condensed tannins which will show a lot of promise for utilization of sorghum with regard to human health in near future and sorghum may also be used as promising natural multifunctional additives in broad food processing. The studies demonstrated in vitro and in animals have shown that phenolic compounds and fat soluble polycosanols isolated from sorghum can benefit in different parameters. Sorghum phenolic compounds may also be used in medicinal products such as creams and cosmetics due to their pharmacological and antimicrobial properties. But the effects of whole sorghum and its fractions on human health need to be evaluated especially, preventive and therapeutic effects of sorghum whole grain and its fractions on human health, including gene and protein expression. Conclusion: Sorghum is an excellent source of bioactive compounds that can promote benefits to human health. In recent times, genetic engineering and breeding tools provide promising prospects to develop sorghum with desirable nutritional and phenolic profile, while maintaining good agronomic performance and yield, and this could be a fruitful area for further research. Investigations through mutagenesis-assisted breeding revealed that biosynthesis of phenolic compounds can be enhanced in sorghum.