Liver is the large and most integral organ of the body. It can be termed as metabolic ‘‘transformer of the body’’ as it plays an active role in the metabolism and detoxification of food (solid or aqueous) and active pharmaceutical ingredients. Many food items, medications and various infections can cause variety of liver disorders such as jaundice, Hepatitis, cirrhosis. liver has an essential role in homeostatic balance of the body and it also performed a number of important activities just as transformation, secretion and storehouse. Liver also plays an important role in digestion by bile secretion (1).
Liver disorders are one of the major health complications now a day. In the clinical context, chronic hepatic disorders express progression of pathological conditions which may leads to eradication and regeneration of the hepatic parenchyma, which finally in turns into cirrhotic condition and if untreated can lead to hepato-cellular carcinoma (2).
In India, a long history of the use of herbal products begins with Ayurvedic treatment and proceeding to the European and Chinese system of ancient medicines (3). The modern trend facilitate the use of herbal drugs and medicinal herbs for the treatment of chronic liver diseases due to the high affluence, life-long healing effects and less adverse effects. The previous studies shows that the protection of liver by can be done by various means like as removing bacteria and viruses, prevent fibro-genesis, decreasing oxidative stress and finally suppressing tumor genesis (2). In 21st centaury an historic shift towards therapeutic screening of the herbal preparations in liver diseases models by harmonizing the strength of ancient system of medicine with that of the modern evidence based potential screening verification and an arbitrary placebo coordinated clinical trial to support and improvise clinical efficacy. According to a study approximately 160 active compounds from 101 plants has been claimed for their hepatoprotective activity (3).
References:
2. Hong M., Li S., Tan H. Y. et al., Current Status of Herbal Medicines in Chronic Liver Disease Therapy: The Biological Effects, Molecular Targets and Future Prospects, International journal of molecular sciences; 2015, (16), p. 28705–28745
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