Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2021 Aug 18:2021:1808081.
doi: 10.1155/2021/1808081. eCollection 2021.

Chemical Composition, Pharmacological, and Toxicological Effects of Betel Nut

Xiaoxiao Chen  1 , Yongzhi He  1 , Yanru Deng  2
Affiliations
Review

Chemical Composition, Pharmacological, and Toxicological Effects of Betel Nut

Xiaoxiao Chen et al. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. .

Retraction in

Abstract

Betel nut, the fruit of Areca catechu L, has a long medical history in Southeast Asia. It is native to Malaysia and is cultivated and processed extensively in subtropical regions, such as South China and India. Betel nut almost appears as a "snack" in various occasions in most parts of China. Clinically, betel nut can play a certain pharmacology role and was used in malaria, ascariasis, arthritis, enterozoic abdominalgia, stagnation of food, diarrhea, edema, and beriberi. The nervous excitement of betel nut chewing has made it gradually become popular. However, chewing betel nut can induce oral submucosal fibrosis (OSF) and oral cancer (OC). At the same time, long-term chewing of betel nut also causes inhaled asthma, sperm reducing, betel quid dependence (BQD), and uterine and esophageal cancers. The main components of processed betel nut are the goal of this review. This study will mainly start from the pharmacological activity and toxicology study of betel nut in recent years, aiming to seek its advantages and disadvantages. In the meantime, this study will analyze and emphasize that betel nut and arecoline are the high-risk factors for oral cancer, which should arouse attention and vigilance of the public.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Chemical structures of acatechu A and B.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Oral diseases associated with betel nut.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Peng W. Using the “target constituent removal combined with bioactivity assay” strategy to investigate the optimum arecoline content in charred areca nut. Scientific Reports. 2017;7 doi: 10.1038/srep40278.40278 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Volgin A. D., Bashirzade A., Amstislavskaya T. G., et al. DARK classics in chemical neuroscience: arecoline. ACS Chemical Neuroscience. 2019;10(5):2176–2185. doi: 10.1021/acschemneuro.8b00711. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Huang J. L., Mcleish M. J. High-performance liquid chromatographic determination of the alkaloids in betel nut. Journal of Chromatography A. 1989;475(2):447–450. doi: 10.1016/s0021-9673(01)89702-8. - DOI
    1. Sen S., Talukder G., Sharma A. Betel cytotoxicity. Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 1989;26(3):217–247. doi: 10.1016/0378-8741(89)90096-2. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Cao M., Yuan H., Daniyal M., et al. Two new alkaloids isolated from traditional Chinese medicine Binglang the fruit of Areca catechu. Fitoterapia. 2019;138 doi: 10.1016/j.fitote.2019.104276.104276 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources