Silymarin’s Inhibition and Treatment Effects for Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

As a longstanding problem, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has stymied researchers in the medical field with its increasing incidence and enormous treatment difficulty. Silymarin has always been valued by researchers for its good efficacy and safety in treating liver disease. Recent studies have shown that silymarin also has good pharmacological activity in the nervous system, especially for the treatment of AD. Silymarin can control the production of Aβ by inhibiting the precursor substance of Aβ (β-amyloid precursor protein), and it can inhibit the polymerization of Aβ. Silymarin can also increase the acetylcholine content in the nervous system by inhibiting cholinesterase activity. At the same time, it also has the effect of resisting oxidative stress and the inflammatory response of the nervous system. These pharmacological activities contribute to the inhibition of the onset of AD. The good efficacy of silymarin on AD and its high safety and availability give it huge potential for the treatment of AD.

Is Alzheimer’s Disease a Liver Disease of the Brain?

“…In a mouse model, it has been shown that Silymarin treatment was associated with a decline in A␤ oligomer production [94]. Silymarin can control the production of A␤ by inhibiting the precursor substance of A␤, A␤PP, and has potential for the treatment of AD [95].…”

Molecular Level Insight Into the Benefit of Myricetin and Dihydromyricetin Uptake in Patients With Alzheimer’s Diseases

“…It is one of the direct causes of aging and a known cause of AD (Jiang et al, 2016). The brain has high oxygen consumption and low antioxidant capacity, which makes it particularly vulnerable to oxidative stress (Guo et al, 2019). Free radicals and ROS are the two main pathways used by oxidative stress to directly damage nerve cells.…”

“…Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter that plays an important role in the transmission of neural signals and memory formation and the lack of ACh in the central nervous system is a known cause of AD (Guo et al, 2019). AChE has been a major target for drug discovery in recent years with three of the current five AD clinical drugs being AChE inhibitors.…”

“…Most patients with AD die within 10 years of diagnosis, and those patients who survive past this, suffer from declines in cognition, language including speech, and memory. AD not only threatens the patients' lives and health but also causes serious societal problems (Guo et al, 2019), especially within countries with a growing aging population. Unfortunately, the incidence of AD has dramatically increased in the last few decades.…”

“…The excessive amounts of Aβ and the abnormally phosphorylated tau peptide (Goedert and Spillantini, 2006) are the most studied pathogenesis of AD. The neurotransmitter imbalance in the central nervous system (Guo et al, 2019) such as acetylcholine (ACh) deficiency, the dyshomeostasis of metal ions (Ayton et al, 2015) and the overexpression of MicroRNA (Sarkar et al, 2019) are also thought to be closely related to the development of AD. Furthermore, physiological function disorders, such as oxidative stress, inflammation (Meraz-Ríos et al, 2013), abnormal autophagy and the damage of insulin signaling pathway (Zhang and Hölscher, 2020) were also found to cause serious damage to the brain and can lead to the manifestation of AD (Butterfield and Halliwell, 2019).…”