Abstract

Uniquely Australian Native Botanicals â?? Next-Gen Super foods

Author(s): Prashant D Sawant

Statement of the Problem: Gut is considered as second brain as gut-microbiota can control the health or relieve symptoms or diseases of organs such as heart, brain, eye, skin, hairs, teeth, etc. (Figure 1). Exploration of novel plant-based non-allopathic medicines or alternative medicine is a growing global trend in past few decades. Australian native botanicals have largely been unexplored for human health so far despite being used by Australians for thousands of years for health benefits. Lemon myrtle, an endemic to Australia, is one of the most successful scientifically proven commercial products that can be further explored for human and pet nutrition products. Recently, Sawant [1,2] has demonstrated the potential applications of lemon myrtle as a superfood as well as a super-nutrient for ocular health. Lemon myrtle is composed of micronutrients such as lutein, citral, vitamins and dietary fibers) which provide excellent health benefits to gut and organs. It exhibits better antioxidant properties than green tea, goji berry, pomegranate, etc. and better antibacterial properties than tea tree oil. It has been widely used in food (e.g. tea), nutraceuticals (e.g. superfoods), etc. Antioxidants, vitamins, and dietary fibers present in lemon myrtle can help to improve gut microbiota or repair leaky gut and in turn help to improve the health of organs in human and pet. Other botanicals such as anise myrtle, Tasman pepper berry, Kakadu plum, Davidson plum, lilly pilly are being explored for the human and pet health. Conclusion & Significance: Uniquely Australian native products have demonstrated the usefulness for the human health, particularly for the gut health. These new superfoods need to be further explored scientifically for human and pet health.