Fruits of Terminalia chebula Retz.: A review on traditional uses, bioactive chemical constituents and pharmacological activities.

Fruits of Terminalia chebula Retz. (Combretaceae) are widely used as crude drugs in various traditional medicine systems. The aim of this article is to review the available scientific information regarding the traditional uses, bioactive chemical constituents and the pharmacological activities of T. chebula. Numerous researches conducted on T. chebula have confirmed the presence of wide range of the phytochemicals such as flavonoids, tannins, phenolic acids and other bioactive compounds. T. chebula is also widely studied regarding its pharmacological activities such as antioxidant, hepatoprotective, neuroprotective, cytotoxic, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory activities among others. However, more in vivo and clinical studies for mechanism-based pharmacological evaluation should be conducted in future to provide stronger scientific evidences for their traditional uses.