Home // Alternative medicine

Study looks at the effects of poor man’s ginseng on liver fibrosis

05/08/2019 // Evangelyn Rodriguez // Views

Tags: alternative medicine, antifibrotic effects, disease treatments, goodhealth, goodmedicine, goodscience, Gynostemma pentaphyllum, gypenosides, herbal medicine, Herbs, liver damage, liver fibrosis, liver health, natural cures, natural medicine, poor man's ginseng, prevention, remedies, research

In this study, researchers from Shuguang Hospital in China investigated the mechanisms underlying the ability of gypenosides (GPs) – the predominant component of Gynostemma pentaphyllum or poor man's ginseng – to ameliorate liver fibrosis. The results of their study were published in The American Journal of Chinese Medicine.

• GP is known to exert antifibrotic effects.
• The researchers induced liver fibrosis in C57BL/6 mice via subcutaneous injection of 10 percent carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) three times a week for two weeks.
• They administered CCl4 in conjunction with intragastric GPs for another three weeks.
• For in vitro analyses, they treated WB-F344 hepatic progenitor cells (HPCs) with transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-B1) with or without GPs for 48 hours. They used immunostaining to visualize specific proteins.
• They found that alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate transaminase (AST) activity, deposition of collagen, hydroxyproline content, and expression of alpha-smooth muscle actin (alpha-SMA) and collagen type I (Col I) significantly decreased after treatment with GPs.
• Treatment with 5M CCl4 significantly increased the expression of HPC markers, Sox9 and cytokeratin 19 (CK19).
• Immunostaining showed that the number of Sox9 and alpha-SMA double-positive cells was higher in the 5M CCl4 group than in the normal group, but the addition of GPs decreased this cell number.
• Treatment with TGF-B1 significantly increased the expression of alpha-SMA and Col I in WB-F344 cells while GPs treatment decreased their expression.
• GP treatment also reduced the levels of TGF-B1 and TGF-BR1 in vivo and in vitro.

These results demonstrated that GPs can ameliorate CCl4-induced liver fibrosis by inhibiting TGF-B signaling, consequently inhibiting the differentiation of HPCs into myofibroblasts.

Journal Reference:

Chen J, Li X, Hu Y, Liu W, Zhou Q, Zhang H, Mu Y, Liu P. GYPENOSIDES AMELIORATE CARBON TETRACHLORIDE-INDUCED LIVER FIBROSIS BY INHIBITING THE DIFFERENTIATION OF HEPATIC PROGENITOR CELLS INTO MYOFIBROBLASTS. The American Journal of Chinese Medicine. 2017;45(05):1061–1074. DOI: 10.1142/s0192415x17500574

---

---