Unveiling the cellular and molecular mechanisms of traditional Chinese medicine in hepatic fibrosis.
Li X, Yang X, Xu Y, Zhao Q, Xu Y
Medicinal Plants
Many of the medicinal herbs reviewed—like turmeric, milk thistle, and Chinese skullcap—grow in backyard herb gardens, and this research reveals why traditional healers reached for them across centuries of liver disease treatment.
When the liver is repeatedly injured over time, it can develop scar tissue that impairs its function—a condition called liver fibrosis. Traditional Chinese herbal medicine appears to fight this scarring from multiple angles at once: calming the immune system, protecting cells from damage, and helping the body clear out the scar tissue. This review pulls together 25 years of research to show that these plants work more like a coordinated team than a single silver-bullet drug.
Key Findings
TCM interventions simultaneously modulate at least five interconnected disease pathways (inflammation, oxidative stress, programmed cell death, metabolic reprogramming, and immune microenvironment remodeling) rather than targeting a single node.
Key signaling pathways suppressed by TCM include NF-κB, NLRP3 inflammasome, TGF-β/Smad, PI3K/Akt/mTOR, and Wnt/β-catenin—all central drivers of fibrosis progression.
A systematic search of PubMed, Web of Science, and CNKI covering 2000–2025 was conducted, with all medicinal plant names verified against the Medicinal Plant Names Services (MPNS) database for taxonomic accuracy.
chevron_right Technical Summary
A comprehensive review finds that traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) fights liver scarring not by blocking a single pathway, but by simultaneously calming inflammation, reducing oxidative stress, regulating cell death, and rebalancing immune activity—disrupting the self-reinforcing cycle that drives chronic liver fibrosis.
Abstract Preview
Hepatic fibrosis (HF) is a prevalent consequence of chronic liver injury, resulting from the persistent interplay of inflammation, oxidative stress, dysregulated cell death, metabolic reprogramming...
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