Research progress in the treatment of ulcerative colitis with natural products

Figure 2 Core challenges and corresponding development directions for the translational application of natural products in ulcerative colitis treatment. This figure illustrates the one-to-one matching relationship between the core challenges (left light pink panel) and corresponding development directions (right light green panel) regarding the translational application of natural products (NPs) in ulcerative colitis (UC) treatment. The left panel summarizes four key challenges in the current field: Low translation efficiency, technical bottlenecks and quality control difficulties, insufficient evidence-based data coupled with low clinical acceptance, and impediments to industrialization and large-scale application. Corresponding to these challenges (linked by the directional arrow), the right panel puts forward four key development directions: Deepening mechanism research and enhancing precision, tackling core technologies and improving quality assurance, standardizing clinical research and strengthening evidence-based data, and strengthening industry-university-research collaboration. This diagram clarifies the “problem-solution” logical connection in this field, providing a clear guiding framework for subsequent research, technological breakthroughs, and the industrial translation of NPs in UC treatment.