Herbal Induced Hepatoprotection and Hepatotoxicity: A Critical Review.

Traditional herbal drugs are wonderful remedies for the treatment of various devastating disorders. Recently, there has been a change in a universal fashion from synthetic to herbal medicine, which is like homecoming to nature. In the present situation, the dietary changes lead to liver disorders like non-alcoholic and alcoholic fatty liver disorders. India is one of the world’s twelve leading biodiversity centers with the presence of over 45,000 diverse plant species, out of this about 15,000-20,000 plants have good medicinal and therapeutic properties of which only about 7,000-7,500 are being used by traditional practitioners. Hepatic injury accounts for 3.5%-9.5% of all adverse drug reaction reports and up to 14.7% of fatal adverse reaction. Hepatic disorders/toxicity can occur by several mechanisms like Cytochrome P450 activation, lipid peroxidation, Induction of nitric acid synthase, mitochondrial dysfunction, activation of pro-inflammatory mediators and Bile acid-induced liver cell death. There are a number of drugs or therapies available for the treatment of hepatic disorders, but still there is a need for the novel drug discovery which can target multiple disease pathways. Traditional medicines have exhaustive ancient and scientific literature for curing a lot of life threatening disorders with less or no side effects. There are number of scientifically proved hepatoprotective herbal drugs like Andrographis paniculata, Ocimum sanctum, Solanum nigrum, Silybum marianum, Phyllanthus niruri etc. which are widely used for the treatment of liver disorders. However, there are various herbal plants and phytoconstituents, which are found to be hepatotoxic like Lanata camra Linn, Symphytum officinale, Azadirachta indica, Amantia phalloides etc. This review emphasizes on both sides of the coin like crucial aspects of phytoconstituents with reference to their hepatoprotective as well as hepatotoxic effects linked to use of herbal preparations.