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REVIEW article

Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Ethnopharmacology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2024.1446536
This article is part of the Research Topic Herbal Medicine for the Treatment of Chronic Metabolic Diseases, Volume II View all articles

The Potential Therapeutic Role of Curcumin in Osteoporosis Treatment: based on multiple signaling pathways

Provisionally accepted
  • College of Bioscience & Biotechnology, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Osteoporosis is a common chronic metabolic bone disease caused by disturbances in normal bone metabolism and an imbalance between osteoblasts and osteoclasts.Osteoporosis is characterized by a decrease in bone mass and bone density, leading to increased bone fragility. Osteoporosis is usually treated with medications and surgical methods, but these methods often produce certain side effects. Therefore, the use of traditional herbal ingredients for the treatment of osteoporosis has become a focus of attention and a hot topic in recent years. Curcumin, widely distributed among herbs such as turmeric, tulip, and curcuma longa, contains phenolic, terpenoid, and flavonoid components. Modern pharmacological studies have confirmed that curcumin has a variety of functions including antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. In addition, curcumin positively regulates the differentiation and promotes the proliferation of osteoblasts, which play a crucial role in bone formation. Multiple studies have shown that curcumin is effective in the treatment of osteoporosis as it interacts with a variety of signaling pathway targets, thereby interfering with the formation of osteoblasts and osteoclasts and regulating the development of osteoporosis. This review summarized the key signaling pathways and their mechanisms of action of curcumin in the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis and analyzed their characteristics and their relationship with osteoporosis and curcumin. This not only proves the medicinal value of curcumin as a traditional herbal ingredient but also further elucidates the molecular mechanism of curcumin's anti-osteoporosis effect, providing new perspectives for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis through multiple pathways.

    Keywords: Curcumin, Osteoporosis, Herbal Medicine, Mechanism, pharmacological effect, Pathway

    Received: 10 Jun 2024; Accepted: 29 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Keyu Wang, College of Bioscience & Biotechnology, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.