The health values of Phoenix dactylifera (dates): A review

Abstract

Dates are one of the most prominent types of fruits spread in the Middle East and North Africa and have been an essential part of the diet of the Arab world since ancient times. It has been called “nature’s candy” due to its sweet taste, which is attributed to its high sugar content. Date fruits have great nutritional and therapeutic value, due to the variety of elements they contain, as they contain a good percentage of fiber, vitamins, and minerals, especially magnesium, potassium, selenium, calcium salts, and fatty acids (lauric, linoleic, palmitic, and citric acid) as well as an excellent source of antioxidants (flavonoids, polyphenols, and carotenoids) which offer significant health-promoting and disease-fighting benefits. In this review, the origin of the date palm fruits was studied, and the nutritional value was compared between three types of dates (Ruthana, Sukari, Ajwa) in terms of the nutritional components and the therapeutic values, which is proven by several studies. The nutritional content of date fruits; sugars, beneficial fats, nutritious proteins, and phytochemicals was reviewed. The health benefits of date fruits include their ability to inhibit free radicals, anti-inflammatory activity, cytotoxicity on cancer cell lines, and the applications for its use as a functional food were indicated. The exact mechanisms still need further research and exploration, specifically, Ruthana fruits as this type of available literature showed a research gap that could be investigated