Herbal Drug Discovery for the Treatment of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Publication date: Available online 10 December 2019Source: Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica BAuthor(s): Tingting Yan, Nana Yan, Ping Wang, Yangliu Xia, Haiping Hao, Guangji Wang, Frank J. GonzalezAbstractFew medications are available for meeting the increasing disease burden of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and its progressive stage, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Traditional herb medicines (THM) have been used for centuries to treat indigenous people with various symptoms but without clarified modern-defined disease type and mechanisms. In modern times, NAFLD was defined as a common chronic disease leading to more studies to understand NAFLD/NASH pathology and progression. THM have garnered increased attention for providing therapeutic candidates for treating NAFLD. In this review, a new model called “multiple organs-multiple hits” is proposed to explain mechanisms of NASH progression. Against this proposed model, the effects and mechanisms of the frequently-studied THM-yielded single anti-NAFLD drug candidates and multiple herb medicines among which silymarin and berberine are already under U.S. FDA-sanctioned phase 4 clinical studies. Furthermore, experimental designs for anti-NAFLD drug discovery from THM in treating NAFLD are discussed. The opportunities and challenges of reverse pharmacology and reverse pharmacokinetic concepts-guided strategies for THM modernization and its global recognition to treat NAFLD are highlighted. Increasing mechanistic evidence...
Source: Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B - Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research