Center for Gene and Cell Engineering, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China. ; Department of Anatomy, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Department of Anatomy, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China. ; Brain Hormone Healthy Aging Centre, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China. ; State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
J Tradit Complement Med. 2013 Apr;3(2):88-94. doi: 10.4103/2225-4110.110411.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the leading causes of chronic liver injury across the world. It is also strongly related to other pathological conditions, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and symptoms of metabolic syndrome. Pathogenesis of NAFLD remains not fully characterized but is generally attributed to the occurrence of insulin resistance, lipid metabolism dysfunction,0 oxidative stress, inflammation, and necro-apoptosis. Every potential therapeutic strategy should target one or some of these pathological events in the liver. Over the past decades, application of herbal treatment for NAFLD has received increasing attention due to its wide availability, low side effects, and proven therapeutic mechanisms and benefits. In recent years, some monomers and certain functional mixtures of herbs have been extensively examined for their potential uses in NAFLD treatment. In the present review, we selected several herbal derivatives under intense basic and/or clinical investigations by carrying out a PubMed search of English language articles relevant to herbal derivatives and NAFLD, such as polysaccharide portion of wolfberry, garlic-derived monomers, red grape-derived resveratrol, and milk thistle-derived substances. They have been shown to target the pathological events during NAFLD initiation and progression both in pre-clinical studies and clinical trials. Although more detailed mechanistic researches and long-term clinical evaluations are needed for their future applications, they offer unanticipated and great health benefits without obvious adverse effects in NAFLD therapy.
非酒精性脂肪性肝病（NAFLD）是全球慢性肝损伤的主要原因之一。它还与其他病理状况密切相关，包括肥胖、糖尿病、心血管疾病和代谢综合征的症状。NAFLD 的发病机制尚未完全阐明，但通常归因于胰岛素抵抗、脂质代谢功能障碍、氧化应激、炎症和坏死凋亡的发生。每种潜在的治疗策略都应针对肝脏中的一种或几种这些病理事件。在过去的几十年中，由于草药治疗的广泛可用性、低副作用以及已证明的治疗机制和益处，其在 NAFLD 治疗中的应用受到了越来越多的关注。近年来，一些草药单体和某些功能性混合物已被广泛研究，以探索其在 NAFLD 治疗中的潜在用途。在本综述中，我们通过对与草药衍生物和 NAFLD 相关的英文文献进行 PubMed 搜索，选择了几种处于强烈基础和/或临床研究中的草药衍生物，如枸杞多糖部分、大蒜衍生单体、红酒来源的白藜芦醇和奶蓟草来源的物质。它们已被证明可针对临床前研究和临床试验中 NAFLD 起始和进展过程中的病理事件。尽管它们在未来的应用中需要更详细的机制研究和长期的临床评估，但它们在 NAFLD 治疗中提供了意想不到的、巨大的健康益处，且没有明显的不良反应。
