Feng Chen, Jun Jiang*, Dan-Dan Tian, Qi Wen, Yong-Hui Li, Jun-Qing Zhang, Chen Cheng and Tengfei Wang* Pages 1142 - 1152 ( 11 )
Cardiovascular disease still remains the primary cause of death worldwide and obesity is becoming recognized as one of the most critical contributing risk factors. The increased prevalence of obesity casts a cloud over the global health and the whole societies and will still be burdened in the future. Therefore, prevention and therapy of obesity is a beneficial strategy for the prevention of chronic cardiovascular disease. Numerous studies have demonstrated that gut microbiota takes part in human health and disease including obesity. Traditional herbs hold great potential to improve people’s health and wellness, particularly in the area of chronic inflammatory diseases although the mechanisms of action remain poorly understood. Emerging explorations of gut microbiotaherb interactions provide a potential to revolutionize the way we view herbal therapeutics. This review summarizes the experimental studies performed on animals and humans regarding the gut microbiota-herb interactions targeting obesity. This review also discusses the opportunity of herbs with potent activities but low oral bioavailability conundrum for prevention and therapy for obesity and related cardiovascular disease.
Obesity, cardiovascular disease, gut microbiota, oral availability conundrum, gut microbiota-herb interactions, microbiota availability.
Hainan Provincial Key Laboratory of R&D of Tropical Herbs, School of Pharmacy, Hainan Medical College, Haikou, Hainan Medical College, 3 Xueyuan Road, Haikou 571199, School of Chinese Medicine, LKS Faculty of Medicine, the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hainan Provincial Key Laboratory of R&D of Tropical Herbs, School of Pharmacy, Hainan Medical College, Haikou, Hainan Provincial Key Laboratory of R&D of Tropical Herbs, School of Pharmacy, Hainan Medical College, Haikou, Hainan Provincial Key Laboratory of R&D of Tropical Herbs, School of Pharmacy, Hainan Medical College, Haikou, Laboratory for DMPK Research of Herbal Medicines, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, Department of Pharmacology, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN 38163