Fate of dietary phytochemicals in human gut and interaction with intestinal flora

Abstract

With the deterioration of the environment and the improvement of human self-protection awareness, the voice of human beings for returning to nature is increasing. There is an increasing interest in regulating the composition and metabolic function of the gastrointestinal microbial community with natural plant diet methods to improve health and prevent or treat diseases. As the “invisible organ” of human beings, the intestinal flora is closely related to human health. Dysbacteriosis can induce a variety of diseases. The regulatory effect of natural plant ingredients on the intestinal flora is expected to be a new treatment for related diseases. The metabolic mechanism of several main components of natural plants in the human body and their influence on the intestinal flora were presented in this paper. Meanwhile, the mechanism of action of intestinal flora in several typical diseases was introduced. In addition, this paper gathered and analyzed previous studies in order to gain insight how plant components can improve diseases by regulating intestinal flora.