Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a growing epidemic and needs serious attention.Gut dysbiosis is one of the major causes of NAFLD because of the close anatomical relationship shared by the liver and the gut.Traditional medicines and functional foods can be an answer to the battle against gut dysbiosis mediated NAFLD. But due to limited opportunities there is a research gap in the field of traditional medicines and gut dysbiosis mediated NAFLD.A detailed study on herbal therapies to tackle the global NAFLD epidemic is required which will provide an insight in integrating herbal medicine to modern therapies.Several traditional knowledge based medicinal plants are known to work wonders in treating stomach-related ailments and can be incorporated in modern scientific techniques to find a cure for gut dysbiosis related NAFLD.To bridge the gap between NAFLD associated gut dysbiosis, we have developed an approach to screen several traditionally known anti-microbial plants. According to traditional healers,we have selected 13 plants consisting of Oxalis corniculata, Garcinia morella,Centella asiatica etc where Garcinia morella showed potent anti-microbial activity.Garcinia morella known as kuji thekera in Assam,India is extensively used in Ayurvedic medicinal practices for treating various diseases and exhibit antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antioxidative and anticancer activities and locally used as home remedy for stomach ailments.Despite its rich traditional uses, not much scientific study on NAFLD associated gut dysbiosis has been done for this plant.To check the efficacy of Garcinia morella in preventing intestinal disruption, in vitro experiments were carried out using CaCo-2 as a model for intestinal epithelium where opportunistic pathogens were used as stimuli to induce intestinal epithelial disruption.The treatment of polarized epithelial cells with opportunistic pathogens decreased the transepithelial resistance (TER) of polarized CaCo-2 cell monolayers, measured using Millicell-ERS-II Volt Ohm meter.It was observed that simultaneous treatment of polarized epithelial cells with Garcinia morella extract and opportunistic pathogen attenuated the decrease in TER of polarized cells.Garcinia morella extract showed promising results in the preliminary in-vitro experiments and further in-vitro as well as in-vivo studies will be carried out to confirm the potential of Garcina morella extract in treating gut dysbiosis mediated NAFLD.

Devi Basumatary

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