Hepatoprotective nature of phytoextracts against hepatotoxin induced animal models: A review

Liver is the largest vital organ in human body and plays a major role in various metabolism and excretion of xenobiotics within the body. Liver dysfunction is a foremost health problem that challenges not only health care professionals but also the pharmaceutical industry as more than 900 drugs are implicated in case of liver injury. Hepatotoxicity is caused by various toxic substances and certain pharmaceutical drugs which produce liver injury such as-carbon tetrachloride, thioacetamide, high doses of acetaminophen, anti-tubercular drugs, few chemotherapeutic agents etc. The existing modern synthetic drugs to treat liver disorders in this condition also cause furthermore liver damage/complications. Therefore, many herbal drugs from natural origin have become increasingly popular and their use is wide spread. These herbal medicines have been used in the treatment of liver diseases for a long time because of their antioxidants properties and tissue protective nature. Extensive researches have been carried out on medicinal plants; however, only few herbal plants have attracted the interest of researchers, to evaluate them for better protective/therapeutic agents for hepatoprotective against chemical induced liver toxicity. Various preclinical investigations have proved that the efficacy of medicinally important plants in the treatment of liver diseases/disorders. Hence, this article provided valuable evidence to the knowledge of investigated medicinal plants; especially those medicinal plants are suitable for hepatoprotective and therapeutic nature against liver toxicity.