Research progress on the role and mechanism of traditional Chinese medicine based on "liver-multiple-organ interaction".

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Based on the theory of "liver governing dispersion", traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) often intervenes in a variety of systemic diseases, with "regulating liver" at the core of clinical practice, reflecting the characteristic advantages of "total regulation". TCM has a rich history of treating diseases, and the significant theoretical and practical knowledge attained therein may be useful in modern practice.

AIM OF THE STUDY: To comprehensively review TCM for the treatment of diseases, summarize the molecular basis, mechanism of action, active ingredients, and formulas of TCM, and clarify the value of TCM for expanding drug options for the clinical treatment of liver disease.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

In PubMed, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar and CNKI databases, "liver-organ axis", "liver-organ crosstalk", "hepatopathy", "liver disease", and "organ crosstalks" were used as the key words. Information related to in vivo animal studies and clinical studies of TCM for the treatment in the past 25 years was retrieved, and the inclusion criteria focused on medicinal plants that had a history of use in China. We summarized the main pathological mechanisms of diseases and the role of TCM in their prevention and treatment.

RESULTS

This review systematically discusses the molecular mechanisms of TCM in treating diseases by regulating the "liver-multiple-organ interaction" network and reveals its mode of action to restore the dynamic balance between organs through multitarget coordination. Studies have shown that the active components and compounds of TCM can target key pathways, such as the enterohepatic circulation, the neuroendocrine axis and the immune-inflammatory system, providing a new perspective for analyzing the pathological mechanism of organ interactions.

CONCLUSION

On this basis, the precise regulatory strategy of TCM under the research paradigm of "liver-multiple-organ interaction" is further proposed, which provides a theoretical basis for the overall intervention and drug research and development of complex diseases.