There is a great need to discover medicines which protect the liver against damaging diseases such as hepatitis and also rapidly restore full functioning of a damaged liver. Hepatitis in many cases, if not treated, could later on in life lead to the cancer of the liver. Alcohol also damages the liver and western world is looking for herbal preparations to protect the liver from alcohol. Many of the powerful drugs used these day sometimes indiscriminately damage the liver.
There are hardly any medicines in allopathic medicine which are known to protect the liver or to treat a damaged liver. Research on some of these plants could yield one or more medicines for liver disease which could be widely used. Fortunately research is being carried out in this field both in India and in Japan. Some of this work has been described.
Out of the many Indian plants used for protecting the liver, three have been selected as being the ones which are the most promising at this time to become drugs for liver disease. These are Andrographis paniculata known as Chirata, Picrorhiza kurroa known as kutki and Phyllanthus niruri known as bhoomyamalkai.
Andrographis paniculata is also known as Kalmegh. Work carried out in several Indian laboratories and particularly at the Department of Pharmacy, Punjab University, Chandigarh by Professor Handa and his group has clearly demonstrated the liver protective property of this plant on experimental animals. The whole plant is used as a juice or as a powder in Ayurvedic medicine system. In earlier years in Bihar, the twigs of Chirata were left in a tumbler of water overnight and the water was drunk in the morning to treat what was then described as a sluggish liver.
Unfortunately it is getting increasingly difficult to obtain these plants and large scale cultivation needs to be carried out. Picrorhiza kurroa or Kutki, again is used throughout northern India as a liver protective substance. It is widely used in Ayurvedic medicine system. Experimental work was carried out jointly by the Indians Council of Medical Research and the Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow led by Professor Dhawan of a substance called Picroliv which is responsible for this beneficial effect. Picroliv is already being clinically evaluated in patients of helatitis.
Phyllanthus niruri or bhoomyamalkai is used South India as a Potent liver protecting substance. A clinical trial of this plant was carried out in 1983 by Dr Dixit and Dr Achar in 160 children out of the 160 improved. This study needs to be repeated on a larger number of children in a well controlled trial. It is understood that such “ double blind” trials are being thought of.
In addition to these plants used largely in India in the Ayurvedic system of medicine and folklore medicine, there are other plants used in the Unani system of medicine being used in India and in Kampo system of medicine used in Japan.
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