Natural flavones from edible and medicinal plants exhibit enormous potential to treat ulcerative colitis.

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic aspecific gut inflammatory disorder that primarily involves the recta and colons. It mostly presents as a long course of repeated attacks. This disease, characterized by intermittent diarrhoea, fecal blood, stomachache, and tenesmus, severely decreases the living quality of sick persons. UC is difficult to heal, has a high recurrence rate, and is tightly related to the incidence of colon cancer. Although there are a number of drugs available for the suppression of colitis, the conventional therapy possesses certain limitations and severe adverse reactions. Thus, it is extremely required for safe and effective medicines for colitis, and naturally derived flavones exhibited huge prospects. This study focused on the advancement of naturally derived flavones from edible and pharmaceutical plants for treating colitis. The underlying mechanisms of natural-derived flavones in treating UC were closely linked to the regulation of enteric barrier function, immune-inflammatory responses, oxidative stress, gut microflora, and SCFAs production. The prominent effects and safety of natural-derived flavones make them promising candidate drugs for colitis treatment.

Potential of natural products in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome.

BACKGROUND: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a kind of functional bowel disease that is characterized by bellyache, abdominal distension, and diarrhea. Although not life-threatening, IBS has a long course and recurrent attacks and seriously affects the life quality of patients. Current drugs for treating IBS possess remarkable limitations, such as limited efficacy and severe adverse reactions. Therefore, developing novel medications to treat IBS is quite essential, and natural products may be a substantial source. PURPOSE: This is the first systematic review elaborating the recent advancement of natural products as potential drugs for the therapy of IBS. METHODS: A comprehensive retrieval of studies was carried out in scientific databases including PubMed, Web of Science, Elsevier, and CNKI. By using ("irritable bowel syndrome" OR "IBS") AND ("natural product" OR "natural compound" OR "phytochemical") as keywords, the eligible studies were screened, and the relevant information about therapeutic action and mechanism of natural products treating IBS was extracted. RESULTS: Natural products against IBS consisted of four categories, namely, terpenoids, flavonoids, alkaloids, and phenols. Furthermore, the underlying mechanisms for natural products treating IBS were tightly associated with increased TJs and mucus protein expression, regulation of the brain-gut axis and gut microbiota structure, and inhibition of inflammatory response and intestinal mucosal damage. CONCLUSION: Natural products could be extremely prospective candidate drugs used to treat IBS, and further preclinical and clinical researches are needed to guarantee their efficacy and safety.

[Jinlong capsule combined with chemoradiotherapy for NSCLC: a Meta-analysis].

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect and safety of Jinlong capsule combined with chemotherapy or radio-therapy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLS) using Meta-analysis. PubMed, Embase, CNKI and Wanfang databases were all searched without language restriction, and searching time was from January 1990 to July 2015. All eligible published studies were included in this study for quality assessment and data extraction. All the data were analyzed using Revman 5.3. A total of ten studies including 736 subjects (370 in Jinlong capsule plus chemoradiotherapy and 366 in chemoradiotherapy only) were finally included in this Meta-analysis. The result of Meta analysis showed that compared with pure chemoradiotherapy group, Jinlong capsule combined with chemoradiotherapy for NSCLC could improve the patients' curative effect (OR = 1.77, 95% CI: 1.29-2.43, P < 0.05), clinical benefit rate (OR = 1.89, 95% CI: 1.22-2.91, P < 0.05), life quality improvement rate (OR = 2. 56, 95% CI: 1.61-4.05, P < 0.05), and decrease leucopenia incidence rate (OR = 0.35, 95% CI: 0. 22-0.56, P < 0.05) and gastrointestinal reaction rate (OR = 0.67, 95% CI: 0.40-1.11, P < 0.05). The pooled results showed that Jinlong capsule combined with chemoradiotherapy for NSCLC could improve the curative effect and life quality, and decrease the adverse reaction of patients.