Revisiting the nutraceutical profile, chemical composition, and health benefits of jaggery: Updates from recent decade

Foods as medicine have been utilized from ancient civilizations and shared from generation to generation as dietary health practices. It provides therapeutic assistance along with nutrition and health benefits. Presently, food products, diet, and individual health are receiving a lot of attention and are in high demand. In this context, jaggery is an important part of food and diet in the rural areas of many regions/countries. It is made up of sugarcane juice and is recognized as a natural source of nutraceuticals due to the presence of different types of essential amino acids, minerals, vitamins, and antioxidant potential along with other biological applications. In this updated review article, we discussed the newest research and information on traditional uses, nutraceutical profiling, chemical composition, and biological applications of jaggery. The published data were collected from different scientific search engines including PubMed, Springer Link, Web of Science, Google Scholar, Science Direct, and Wiley online library. Given these findings, we can conclude that jaggery is a strong source of nutraceuticals and its nutraceutical potential can be enhanced with value addition and other scientific interventions. Detailed investigations on preclinical (in silico, in vitro, and in vivo) studies along with its actual mechanism of action in depth are required. Additionally, clinical trials also should be conducted to validate the preclinical studies.