Promoting Plant-Based Therapies for Chronic Kidney Disease

Abstract

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is debilitating, increasing in incidence worldwide, and a financial and social burden on health systems. Kidney failure, the final stage of CKD, is life-threatening if untreated with kidney replacement therapies. Current therapies using commercially-available drugs, such as angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin II receptor blockers and calcium channel blockers, generally only delay the progression of CKD. This review article focuses on effective alternative therapies to improve the prevention and treatment of CKD, using plants or plant extracts. Three mechanistic processes that are well-documented in CKD pathogenesis are inflammation, fibrosis, and oxidative stress. Many plants and their extracts are already known to ameliorate kidney dysfunction through antioxidant action, with subsequent benefits on inflammation and fibrosis. In vitro and in vivo experiments using plant-based therapies for pre-clinical research demonstrate some robust therapeutic benefits. In the CKD clinic, combination treatments of plant extracts with conventional therapies that are seen as relatively successful currently may confer additive or synergistic renoprotective effects. Therefore, the aim of recent research is to identify, rigorously test pre-clinically and clinically, and avoid any toxic outcomes to obtain optimal therapeutic benefit from medicinal plants. This review may prove to be a filtering tool to researchers into complementary and alternative medicines to find out the current trends of using plant-based therapies for the treatment of kidney diseases, including CKD.

Agrárias: Pesquisa e Inovação nas Ciências que Alimentam o Mundo IX

“…No obstante, se tiene la problemática que la mayoría de estas plantas no cuentan con evidencia científica suficiente que asegure su calidad, eficacia y seguridad. (Bahmani et al, 2016;Govea-Salas et al, 2017;Khan et al, 2022;Sansores-España et al, 2022).…”

“…Sobre todo, porque algunas plantas pueden tener efectos nefrotóxicos o hepatotóxicos, además de presentarse interacciones entre plantas y medicamentos, errores de dosificación y de identificación, presencia de contaminantes ambientales e incluso adulterantes químicos. (Bateman, Chapman & Simpson, 1998;Debjit et al, 2009;Ekor, 2014;Khan et al, 2022;Lippert & Renner, 2022;Yang et al, 2018).…”

“…En ese sentido, se recomienda una evaluación científica de las propiedades químicas y biológicas, realizar un control de calidad de los extractos, una identificación adecuada de la planta, el correcto etiquetado y con todo esto corroborar científicamente su seguridad y eficacia farmacológica. (Heinrich et al, 2022;Khan et al, 2022;Luan et al, 2020;Rivera-Mondragón et al, 2017).…”

Identification of medicinal plants used for chronic kidney disease: An update of reported literature in South Africa

“…Over the last two decades, there has been significant global population growth, ageing and an accelerated rate of epidemiologic transition, with lower communicable disease mortality and an increased burden of noncommunicable diseases (Piret & Boivin 2021). Chronic kidney disease (CKD), a well-known health problem worldwide (Herrera-Añazco et al 2019), is a debilitating condition that is becoming more common around the world, as well as a financial and social burden on healthcare systems in developed and developing countries (Khan et al 2022). Diabetes and hypertension are widely regarded as the two leading causes of CKD disease (Zhao et al 2021).…”

“…Diabetes and hypertension are widely regarded as the two leading causes of CKD disease (Zhao et al 2021). Although statistics vary by country, the prevalence of this disease has recently increased from year to year (Khan et al 2022). Chronic kidney disease rates rise rapidly with age, with prevalence in those aged 75 years and up being twice as high as those aged 65-74 years, and nearly seven times higher than those aged 18-54 years (42%, 21% and 6%, respectively).…”