Natural Product Leads for Managing Metabolic Diseases

Dear Colleagues,

According to the latest estimate of the World Health Organisation, diabetes affects over 830 million people in the world, and its prevalence over the last few decades increased with epidemic proportion. Apart from diabetes being the direct cause of death for over 1.6 million people per year, diabetes-associated complications such as blindness, kidney and cardiovascular disorders, stroke and lower limb amputation are also global challenges with significant burden to global societies. Both genetics and lifestyle play a role in diabetes; another critical risk factor, obesity, manifests a global prevalence of over 890 million with a further 2.5 billion people classed as overweight. Not surprisingly, metabolic syndrome that links both diabetes and cardiovascular diseases have become a common pathology that we consider with when designing our drug discovery strategies. Other forms of metabolic disorders include familial hypercholesterolemia and glycogen storage disease, which have lower prevalence but share similar pathological features. There is currently no cure for these diseases and the existing drugs have several drawbacks including high cost, poor efficacy and undesirable side effects. It is against this background that this Special Issue was proposed to highlight the pivotal role of natural products as potential leads for drug discovery in these fields. On this note, numerous natural products, both crude preparations (plant, fungal, microbial, algal, etc.) and isolated compounds, have shown pharmacological efficacy against metabolic diseases. This includes effects through unique biological targets (receptors, enzymes, ion channels, etc.) or multiple mechanisms ranging from general antioxidants and anti-inflammatory mechanisms to specific unique targets of metabolic diseases. Insights on therapies using natural products in the form of original research articles or reviews in any area of metabolic diseases, experimental designs and therapeutic approaches are welcome.

Dr. Solomon Habtemariam
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.