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Review
. 2022 Sep 20:13:1000727.
doi: 10.3389/fendo.2022.1000727. eCollection 2022.

Application of herbs and active ingredients ameliorate non-alcoholic fatty liver disease under the guidance of traditional Chinese medicine

Zhijia Zhou  1 , Jinghao Zhang  1 , Liping You  1 , Tao Wang  1 , Kaixia Wang  1   2 , Lingtai Wang  1 , Xiaoni Kong  3 , Yueqiu Gao  1 , Xuehua Sun  1
Affiliations
Review

Application of herbs and active ingredients ameliorate non-alcoholic fatty liver disease under the guidance of traditional Chinese medicine

Zhijia Zhou et al. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). .

Abstract

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a global health problem, and its prevalence has been on the rise in recent years. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) contains a wealth of therapeutic resources and has been in use for thousands of years regarding the prevention of liver disease and has been shown to be effective in the treatment of NAFLD in China. but the molecular mechanisms behind it have not been elucidated. In this article, we have updated and summarized the research and evidence concerning herbs and their active ingredients for the treatment in vivo and vitro models of NAFLD or NASH, by searching PubMed, Web of Science and SciFinder databases. In particular, we have found that most of the herbs and active ingredients reported so far have the effect of clearing heat and dispelling dampness, which is consistent with the concept of dampness-heat syndrome, in TCM theory. we have attempted to establish the TCM theory and modern pharmacological mechanisms links between herbs and monomers according to their TCM efficacy, experiment models, targets of modulation and amelioration of NAFLD pathology. Thus, we provide ideas and perspectives for further exploration of the pathogenesis of NAFLD and herbal therapy, helping to further the scientific connotation of TCM theories and promote the modernization of TCM.

Keywords: Dampness-heat syndrome; TCM; herbs; ingredients; non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Current pathogenesis of NAFLD.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The pathological factors of Gan-Pi and the corresponding classification of symptoms of ZHENGs in TCM theory. dampness-heat (shi-re in Chinese), phlegm (tan in Chinese), blood stasis (xue-yu in Chinese) and qi stagnation (qi-zhi in Chinese).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Workflow of this review. Blue represents the causative factors of NAFLD, purple represents the method of classification of drugs and light yellow represents the different pathological mechanisms.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The regulatory effects on pathways induced by a group of ingredients from dispelling dampness (Qu Shi) and dissolving turbidity (Hua Zhuo) herbs.
Figure 5
Figure 5
The regulatory effects on pathways induced by a group of ingredients from Heat-Clearing (Qing Re) herbs.
Figure 6
Figure 6
The relationship between (A) anti-dampness herbs and their active components, (B) clearing-heat herbs and their active components and the current pathological factors of NAFLD. The inner part is the pathological mechanism of NAFLD, the middle represents the corresponding herbs, and the outside is their active components. The colors represent the different molecular mechanisms of pathology and the size represents the proportion of the current study. The names of the individual herbs are given in Chinese and the corresponding English names are detailed in Tables 2, 3.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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