Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common liver disorder worldwide with approximately 25% of the world's population being affected. Therefore, it is an important public health problem. NAFLD can lead to further complications such as non-alcoholic steato-hepatitis (NASH), cirrhosis, liver cancer, liver failure, and even cardiovascular diseases. Obesity is considered the main cause of NAFLD and with the rapid increase in obesity due to increased prevalence of sedentary lifestyle and high consumption of fast-food, this has led to an enormous rising in the number of patients with NAFLD. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new pharmacological interventions that can provide effective and safe treatment of this disease.
Currently, the number of clinically approved pharmacological interventions that can be used in the management of NAFLD, its complications, and predisposing factors such as obesity is highly limited. Moreover, there are concerns regarding the efficacy and safety of the available treatments. In this context, natural products can serve as a vast platform for the development of safe and cost-effective drugs or supplements. Also, there is an increasing effort in research of natural products which could be of vital importance for protection against, and treatment of, obesity, NAFLD, and associated cardiovascular complications. The results observed in these studies are promising and show high efficacy and safety for pharmacological use.
This Research Topic welcomes original research papers, review articles, mini-reviews, short communications, commentaries, editorial letters, case studies and clinical trials that define the role and importance of natural products in the treatment and management of NAFLD and its complications. Themes are welcome, but are not limited to, the following topics:
- Extracts of known composition with potential hepato-protective effects against NAFLD.
- Pure natural products that target the underlying mechanisms of NAFLD.
- Bio-guided isolation of natural compounds for treatment of NAFLD.
- Management of NAFLD-associated cardiovascular complications using natural products.
- Identification of new natural products with hepatoprotective effects and their molecular targets.
- Natural products that can reduce obesity as a main cause of NAFLD.
-Natural products based pharmaceutical formulations for management of NAFLD.
-Changes in transcriptome, proteome and/or metabolome of NAFLD relative to treatment with natural products.
All the manuscripts submitted to the collection will need to fully comply with the
Four Pillars of Best Practice in Ethnopharmacology (you can freely download the full version
here.