Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Interuniversity Research Centre on Food, Nutrition and the Gastrointestinal Tract (CIRANAD), 2nd University of Naples, 80131 Naples, Italy.
Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2012;2012:837939. doi: 10.1155/2012/837939. Epub 2012 Sep 6.
Complementary and alternative medicine soughts and encompasses a wide range of approaches; its use begun in ancient China at the time of Xia dynasty and in India during the Vedic period, but thanks to its long-lasting curative effect, easy availability, natural way of healing, and poor side-effects it is gaining importance throughout the world in clinical practice. We conducted a review describing the effects and the limits of using herbal products in chronic liver disease, focusing our attention on those most known, such as quercetin or curcumin. We tried to describe their pharmacokinetics, biological properties, and their beneficial effects (as antioxidant role) in metabolic, alcoholic, and viral hepatitis (considering that oxidative stress is the common pathway of chronic liver diseases of different etiology). The main limit of applicability of CAM comes from the lacking of randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials giving a real proof of efficacy of those products, so that anecdotal success and personal experience are frequently the driving force for acceptance of CAM in the population.
补充和替代医学寻求并包含了广泛的方法；它的使用始于中国古代的夏朝和印度吠陀时期，但由于其持久的疗效、易于获得、自然的治疗方式和较少的副作用，它在世界范围内的临床实践中变得越来越重要。我们进行了一项综述，描述了在慢性肝病中使用草药产品的效果和限制，特别关注那些最知名的草药产品，如槲皮素或姜黄素。我们试图描述它们的药代动力学、生物学特性以及它们在代谢性、酒精性和病毒性肝炎中的有益作用（因为氧化应激是不同病因的慢性肝病的共同途径）。CAM 的主要应用限制来自缺乏随机、安慰剂对照的临床试验，这些试验无法真正证明这些产品的疗效，因此轶事成功和个人经验常常是 CAM 在人群中被接受的驱动力。
