Title:Potential Natural Compounds for the Prevention and Treatment of Nonalcoholic
Fatty Liver Disease: A Review on Molecular Mechanisms
Volume: 15
Author(s): Cheng Ma, Cheng Wang, Yafang Zhang, Honglin Zhou and Yunxia Li*
Affiliation:
- State Key Laboratory of Southwestern Chinese Medicine Resources, Key Laboratory of Standardization for Chinese
Herbal Medicine, Ministry of Education, School of Pharmacy, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine,
Chengdu, 611137, China
Keywords:
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, traditional chinese medicine, natural compounds, pathogenesis, “multiple hit” theory, molecular mechanisms.
Abstract:
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a kind of metabolic stress-induced liver injury
closely related to insulin resistance and genetic susceptibility, and there is no specific drug for
its clinical treatment currently. In recent years, a large amount of literature has reported that many
natural compounds extracted from traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) can improve NAFLD
through various mechanisms. According to the latest reports, some emerging natural compounds
have shown great potential to improve NAFLD but are seldom used clinically due to the lacking
special research.
This paper aims to summarize the molecular mechanisms of the potential natural compounds on improving
NAFLD, thus providing a direction and basis for further research on the pathogenesis of
NAFLD and the development of effective drugs for the prevention and treatment of NAFLD.
By searching various online databases, such as Web of Science, SciFinder, PubMed, and CNKI,
NAFLD and these natural compounds were used as the keywords for detailed literature retrieval.
The pathogenesis of NAFLD and the molecular mechanisms of the potential natural compounds on
improving NAFLD have been reviewed.
Many natural compounds from traditional Chinese medicine have a good prospect in the treatment
of NAFLD, which can serve as a direction for the development of anti-NAFLD drugs in the future.