Complementary medicines and ginseng for inflammatory bowel disease-rooted in science, but will it bear fruit?

Table 2 The overlapping mechanisms of conventional inflammatory bowel disease therapies and complementary and alternative medicines

Mechanisms	Conventional therapies	Complementary and alternative medicines
NF-κB	Sulfasalazine, methotrexate, corticosteroids	Ginseng; curcumin; ginger; resveratrol; Indigo naturalis; Andrographis paniculata; Tripterygium wilfordii
JAK/STAT	JAK inhibitors	Alopolysaccharide (polymer from Aloe vera)
MAPK	Not targeted by current conventional therapies	Ginseng; ginger; Indigo naturalis
Intestinal epithelial barrier	Not targeted by current conventional therapies	Ginseng

NF-κB: Nuclear factor-κB; JAK: Janus kinase; STAT: Signal transducers and activator of transcription; MAPK: Mitogen-activated protein kinase.