What is it about?
This review looks at how plants and their natural compounds can help people with inflammatory bowel diseases, like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. These illnesses cause painful and recurring gut inflammation. A key culprit is the NLRP3 inflammasome, a protein complex that drives excessive immune reactions in the intestine. The article gathers evidence from dozens of laboratory and animal studies showing that certain medicinal plants and natural compounds, from grapes and olives to ginseng and turmeric, can quiet this pathway, reduce inflammation, and protect gut health.
Featured Image
Photo by Jan Antonin Kolar on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Current treatments for Crohn’s and colitis are costly and often have serious side effects. This work highlights the promise of safe, plant-based therapies that may reduce inflammation at its source by targeting the NLRP3 inflammasome. It is timely, as interest in natural remedies and sustainable medicine is growing worldwide. By mapping which compounds work and how, this review points the way toward new, low-risk strategies to complement or even improve existing therapies.
Perspectives
For me, this review reflects the value of looking back to traditional knowledge with modern tools. What excites me most is the idea that everyday plants, long used in folk medicine, can be re-examined and validated as powerful regulators of our immune system. I see this as a bridge between natural medicine and precision pharmacology, and a step toward more holistic and patient-friendly options for treating chronic gut disease.
Dr. Rosa Direito
Universidade de Lisboa
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Medicinal Plants, Phytochemicals and Regulation of the NLRP3 Inflammasome in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases: A Comprehensive Review, Metabolites, June 2023, MDPI AG,
DOI: 10.3390/metabo13060728.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
