Abstract
Osteoporosis is a bone disease characterized by increasing osseous fragility and fracture due to the reduced bone mass and microstructural degradation. Primary pharmacological strategies for the treatment of osteoporosis, hormone replacement treatment (HRT), and alendronate therapies may produce adverse side-effects and may not be recommended for long-term usage. Some classic and bone-specific natural Chinese medicine are very popularly used to treat osteoporosis and bone fracture effectively in clinical with their potential value in bone growth and development, but with few adverse side-effects. Current evidence suggests that the treatments appear to improve bone metabolism and attenuate the osteoporotic imbalance between bone formation and bone resorption at a cellular level by promoting osteoblast activity and inhibiting the effects of osteoclasts. The valuable therapies might, therefore, provide an effective and safer alternative to primary pharmacological strategies. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to comprehensively review these classic and bone-specific drugs in natural Chinese medicines for the treatment of osteoporosis that had been deeply and definitely studied and reported with both bone formation and antiresorption effects, including Gynochthodes officinalis (F.C.How) Razafim. & B.Bremer (syn. Morinda officinalis F.C.How), Curculigo orchioides Gaertn., Psoralea corylifolia (L.) Medik Eucommia ulmoides Oliv., Dipsacus inermis Wall. (syn. Dipsacus asperoides C.Y.Cheng & T.M.Ai), Cibotium barometz (L.) J. Sm., Velvet Antler, Cistanche deserticola Ma, Cuscuta chinensis Lam., Cnidium monnieri (L.) Cusson, Epimedium brevicornum Maxim, Pueraria montana (Lour.) Merr. and Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge., thus providing evidence for the potential use of alternative Chinese medicine therapies to effectively treat osteoporosis.
Highlights
Osteoporosis may result from imbalanced bone metabolism leading to a systemic deterioration in bone mass and bone microstructure, characterized by skeletal fragility and an increased risk of bone fracture (Albright, 1947; Rachner et al, 2011)
Investigation of the polysaccharides extracted from MO revealed that osteogenic inulins of MO promote the proliferation, differentiation, and mineralization of osteoblast cells, as confirmed by the up-regulation of marker genes, including runt-related transcription factor 2, osterix, osteocalcin, bone sialoprotein, and OPG (Jiang et al, 2018). These findings suggest that MO and its bioactive components might provide an important therapeutic role for the treatment and prevention of osteoporosis
In the presence of bavachalcone, the activity of the osteoclast differentiation factor, NFκB (RANKL), was reduced, leading to inhibition of osteoclastogenesis via suppression of transcription factors, c-Fos, NFATc1, and by blocking MEK, extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), and Akt signalling (Park et al, 2008). These findings suggest that P. corylifolia appears to be an important therapeutic agent in Chinese medicine for the treatment of osteoporosis
Summary
Osteoporosis may result from imbalanced bone metabolism leading to a systemic deterioration in bone mass and bone microstructure, characterized by skeletal fragility and an increased risk of bone fracture (Albright, 1947; Rachner et al, 2011). Almost one in three women and one in five men would experience one bone fracture in their life after 50 years of age, resulting from osteoporosis (Sozen et al, 2017). Osteoporosis is, a debilitating disease for sufferers, leading to reduced quality of life, and places a large economic burden on society (Curtis et al, 2016). It is necessary to continue research leading to the development of a medical treatment that may effectively treat and potentially prevent osteoporosis (Wang et al, 2017b)
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