Herbal Coltsfoot(Tussilago farfara), the Liver-protective Remedy

By Kyle J. Norton

The liver is the largest internal and only organ in the human body that can regenerate itself.

The liver is the first line of detoxing defense by filtering the blood that comes from the digestive tract, before passing them to other organs and tissues in the body.

The liver also produces cholesterol that plays a critical role in building strong cell membranes, producing steroid hormones and vitamin D and aiding the digestive function in food absorption and detoxifying chemicals and metabolizing drugs.

The hepatoprotective or liver protective effect is an action that maintains the healthy function of the liver against any harmful toxins.

Symptoms of liver diseases include jaundice, abdominal pain, and swelling, swelling in the legs and ankles, itchy skin, dark urine, and pale stool color, and a tendency to bruise easily.

There are no exact causes of liver disease. Viruses, toxins, genetics, alcohol, and unknown causes are some prevalent factors found in patients with chronic liver disease, inclduing cancer.

In the US, most cases of liver disease are a result of hepatitis viral infection and autoimmune diseases. Infectious viral hepatitis can produce toxins to protect them against the antioxidant enzymes produced by the host body and prevent the attack of the systematic immune response.

Furthermore, in recent years, excessive alcohol drinking has been found to induce alcoholic liver disease in many parts of Asia and America.

Coltsfoot(Tussilago farfara) is a perennial herbaceous plant, genus Tussilago, belonging to the family Asteraceae, native to Europe and Asia. The herb has been used over thousands of years to treat asthma, various coughs, bronchial congestion, respiratory disorders, headaches and obstruction in the nasal passage, etc.

On finding a potential compound which processes a liver protective effect, researchers examined the highly active photocomposition (PC-1) containing oregano (Origanum vulgare), wild thyme (Thymus serpyllum) and coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) aerial parts, valerian (Valeriana officinalis) leaves and little-leaf linden (Tilia cordata) flowers and PC-1 extract exhibited the strongest anti-lipid peroxidation (LPO)O and antihemolytic effects.

According to the tested results, PC-1 extract activated the Nrf2/antioxidant response is more effective comapred to the extracts of other photocomposition.

Furthermore, oral administration of PC-1 extract (100-200 mg/kg) markedly protected the rat liver injury acutely or chronically against intoxicated by carbon tetrachloride.

The liver protective activity of PC-1 was attributed to the activation of the levels of antioxidant enzymes in the host and the improvement of liver histology, blood chemistry parameters.

Moreover, the osmotic fragility test (OFT) also addressed that PC-1 extract inhibited the destruction of red blood cells in carbon tetrachloride intoxicated rats.

Based on the findings, researchers said, " these data support the strategy of in-vitro plant selection for developing efficacious tissue-protective photocomposition".

Taken altogether, coltsfoot may be considered a liver protective remedy, pending to the confirmation of the larger sample size and multicenter human study.

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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) A composition of medicinal plants with an enhanced ability to suppress microsomal lipid peroxidation and a protective activity against carbon tetrachloride-induced hepatotoxicity by Aralbaeva AN1, Mamataeva AT1, Zhaparkulova NI2, Utegalieva RS1, Khanin M3, Danilenko M4, Murzakhmetova MK. (PubMed)