Advances in Research on Marine-Derived Lipid-Lowering Active Substances and Their Molecular Mechanisms

Abstract

Hyperlipidemia (HLP) is a metabolic disorder caused by abnormal lipid metabolism. Recently, the prevalence of HLP caused by poor dietary habits in the population has been increasing year by year. In addition, lipid-lowering drugs currently in clinical use have shown significant improvement in blood lipid levels, but are accompanied by certain side effects. However, bioactive marine substances have been shown to possess a variety of physiological activities such as hypoglycemic, antioxidant, antithrombotic and effects on blood pressure. Therefore, the hypolipidemic efficacy of marine bioactive substances with complex and diverse structures has also attracted attention. This paper focuses on the therapeutic role of marine-derived polysaccharides, unsaturated fatty acids, and bioactive peptides in HLP, and briefly discusses the main mechanisms by which these substances exert their hypolipidemic activity in vivo.

Keywords: hyperlipidemia; lipid metabolism; marine bioactive substances; molecular mechanisms.

Figure 1

Research on the relationship between marine active substances and human health. The image was generated by software called VOSviewer 1.6.19 that analyzes search results from the web of science core dataset for the keywords (marine, bioactive compound). We extracted the keywords of the articles extremely references in the dataset and plotted them as images on this basis. Different bubble colors in the picture represent different categories, with the more relevant literature representing larger bubbles for the subject terms.

Figure 2

Number of publications on marine hypolipidemic active substances (2016–2023). We counted the number of articles per year related to the subject terms in web of science with keywords (marine, hyperlipemia, bioactive compound) and year of publication (2016–2023) constraints and made a line graph with the GraphPad Prism 8.0.

Figure 3

Complications of hyperlipidemia (HLP).

Figure 4

Lipid metabolism pathway and target of hypolipidemic drugs. This diagram mainly shows the main process mechanisms of cholesterol absorption, transport and metabolism in the human body, including endogenous and exogenous cholesterol metabolism. Exogenous cholesterol mainly comes from diet and is absorbed through the small intestine, while endogenous cholesterol is mainly synthesized by the body itself, mainly in the liver. In addition, it contains the location of the target sites of common lipid-lowering drugs.

Figure 5

Marine-derived hypolipidemic actives.

Figure 6

Molecular mechanisms of lipid lowering effects. ↑: Elevated levels or upward adjustments. ↓: Decrease in level or downward adjustment.