Mohamed Saleem T.S et al. | Int. J. Res. Pharm. Sci. Vol-1, Issue-1, 1-5, 2010 ©Pharmascope Foundation | www.pharmascope.org 1 Hepatoprotective Herbs – A Review T.S. Mohamed Saleem*, C. Madhusudhana Chetty, S. Ramkanth, V.S.T. Rajan, K. Mahesh Kumar, Gauthaman K # Department of Pharmacology, Annamacharya College of Pharmacy, Rajampet-516126 # Department of Pharmacognosy, Himalayan Pharmacy Institute, Majhitar, Sikkim ABSTRACT Liver is a vital organ play a major role in metabolism and excretion of xenobiotics from the body. Liver injury or liver dysfunction is a major health problem that challenges not only health care professionals but also the phar- maceutical industry and drug regulatory agencies. Liver cell injury caused by various toxic chemicals (certain anti- biotic, chemotherapeutic agents, carbon tetrachloride (CCL 4 ), thioacetamide (TAA) etc.), excessive alcohol con- sumption and microbes is well-studied. The available synthetic drugs to treat liver disorders in this condition also cause further damage to the liver. Hence, Herbal drugs have become increasingly popular and their use is wide- spread. Herbal medicines have been used in the treatment of liver diseases for a long time. A number of herbal preparations are available in the market. The present review is aimed at compiling data on promising phytochemi- cals from medicinal plants that have been tested in hepatotoxicity models using modern scientific system. Keywords: Herbal drugs, Liver Injury, Carbon tetrachloride (CCL 4 ), Hepatotoxicity, Serum transaminases. INTRODUCTION Liver is considered to be one of the most vital organs that functions as a centre of metabolism of nutrients such as carbohydrates, proteins and lipids and excre- tion of waste metabolites. Additionally, it is also han- dling the metabolism and excretion of drugs and other xenobiotics from the body thereby providing protec- tion against foreign substances by detoxifying and eli- minating them. The bile secreted by the liver has, among other things, plays an important role in diges- tion. Liver cell injury caused by various toxicants such as certain chemotherapeutic agents, carbon tetrachlo- ride, thioacetamide etc., chronic alcohol consumption and microbes is well-studied. Enhanced lipid peroxida- tion during metabolism of ethanol may result in devel- opment of hepatitis leading to cirrhosis. Since time immemorial, mankind has made the use of plants in the treatment of various ailments. The Indian Tradi- tional Medicine like Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani are predominantly based on the use of plant materials. Herbal drugs have gained importance and popularity in recent years because of their safety, efficacy and cost effectiveness. The association of medical plants with other plants in their habitat also influences their medi- cinal values in some cases. One of the important and well-documented uses of plant-products is their use as hepatoprotective agents. Hence, there is an ever in- creasing need for safe hepatoprotective agent (Agar- wal, 2001). Hepatoprotective herbs Herbal-based therapeutics for liver disorders has been in use in India for a long time and has been popularized world over by leading pharmaceuticals. Despite the significant popularity of several herbal medicines in general, and for liver diseases in particular, they are still unacceptable treatment modalities for liver dis- eases. The limiting factors that contribute to this even- tuality are (i) lack of standardization of the herbal drugs; (ii) lack of identification of active ingre- dient(s)/principles(s); (iii) lack of randomized controlled clinical trials (RCTs), and (iv) lack of toxicological evalu- ation (Radha et al., 2005). The use of natural remedies for the treatment of liver diseases has a long history, starting with the Ayurvedic treatment, and extending to the Chinese, European and other systems of tradi- tional medicines. The 21 st century has seen a paradigm shift towards therapeutic evaluation of herbal products in liver disease models by carefully synergizing the strengths of the traditional systems of medicine with that of the modern concept of evidence-based medi- cinal evaluation, standardization and randomized pla- cebo controlled clinical trials to support clinical efficacy (Thyagarajan et al., 2002). A large number of plants and formulations have been claimed to have hepatoprotective activity. Nearly 160 phytoconstituents from 101 plants have been claimed www.ijrps.pharmascope.org ISSN: 0975-7538 Review Article * Corresponding Author Email: saleemcology@gmail.com Contact: +91-9701978543 Received on: 17.11.2009 Revised on: 04.12.2009 Accepted on: 09.12.2009