Review of hepatoprotective agents in herbs

Abstract

Hepatic disease is one of the main causes of death in the world and occurs commonly induced by alcohol, viral and drugs. Treatment of hepatic diseases by using synthetic drugs is lead to serious adverse effects. Due to that, herbal treatment has appeared as an alternative treatment with good value in treating hepatic diseases. Herbs have been used traditionally for treating hepatic diseases since the past centuries. Numerous phytochemicals from herbs have been found as hepatoprotective (ability to minimize the effect of hepatic diseases which eventually improve hepatic function) agents. Although there are reports from many researchers on the hepatoprotective agents in various herbs, these scientific data are scattered and no conclusive information especially for various induced hepatic diseases is achieved to date. The researchers just consider the phytochemicals in herbs with specific induced of hepatic diseases. This limits researches on mapping the hepatoprotective properties for various induced of hepatic diseases. Therefore, it is important to compile and study the hepatoprotective agents in herbs in order to provide a baseline for future research such as blending and new formulation of herbs. Phytochemicals such as silymarin, andrographolide, neoandrographolide, picroside, kutkoside, phyllanthin and glycyrrhizin and so on are known to act as hepatoprotective agents for treating hepatic diseases. This review focuses on the herbs and their mechanisms of phytochemical group as hepatopotective agents. It has been found that hepatoprotection agents generally exert multiple effects such as antioxidant, free radical scavenging, antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties. The vital mechanisms of hepatoprotection agents are probably due to the presence structure of flavonoids in herbal plants. The results of this study indicate that extracts of phytochemicals from certain herbs have good potentials for use in various induced of hepatic diseases.