Natural Products as a Source of Anti-Inflammatory Agents Associated with Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Department of Life Science, College of Biomedical & Health Science, Research Institute of Inflammatory Disease, Konkuk University, Chungju 380-701, Korea
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Molecules 2013, 18(6), 7253-7270; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules18067253
Received: 27 April 2013 / Revised: 5 June 2013 / Accepted: 14 June 2013 / Published: 19 June 2013
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anti-Inflammatory & Anti-Allergy Agents in Medicinal Chemistry)
Accumulating epidemiological and clinical study indicates that inflammation is a significant risk factor to develop various human diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), chronic asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and psoriasis. Suppressing inflammation is therefore important to control or prevent various diseases. Among them, IBD is one of the major problems affecting people worldwide. IBD affects at least one in a thousand persons in many Western countries. Various natural products have been shown to safely suppress pro-inflammatory pathway and control IBD. In vivo and/or in vitro studies indicate that anti-IBD effects of natural products occur by inhibition of the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines (for example, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), intercellular adhesion molecule expression and pro-inflammatory mediators (such as inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase 2 (COX2), master transcription factors (such as nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB)), reactive oxygen species (ROS) and by improving the antioxidant activity. In this review, we summarize recent research focused on IBD and the effects that natural products have on IBD factors.