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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 7, 2016; 22(1): 8-23
Published online Jan 7, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i1.8
Optimal management for alcoholic liver disease: Conventional medications, natural therapy or combination?
Moon-Sun Kim, Madeleine Ong, Xianqin Qu
Moon-Sun Kim, Madeleine Ong, XianQin Qu, School of Medical and Molecular Biosciences, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia
Moon-Sun Kim, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Author contributions: Kim MS, Ong M and Qu X contributed to writing the manuscript; Kim MS produced the figures and Ong M thoroughly edited the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Xianqin Qu, PhD, MD, School of Medical and Molecular Biosciences, University of Technology Sydney, PO Box 123, Broadway, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia. xianqin.qu@uts.edu.au
Telephone: +61-2-95147852 Fax: +61-2-95147852
Received: April 28, 2015
Peer-review started: May 5, 2015
First decision: June 23, 2015
Revised: July 7, 2015
Accepted: November 13, 2015
Article in press: November 13, 2015
Published online: January 7, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: The aim of this article is to review the impairment of hepatocellular dysfunction in alcoholic liver diseases and their prospective managements. Specifically, we focused on the natural therapies with their efficacies and safeties. Moreover, we summarized molecular mechanisms of herbal therapy to treat alcoholic liver disease (ALD). With evidence-based natural therapy, this article highlighted that the combination of pharmaceutical drugs with naturally occurring agents may offer an optimal management for this complex liver disease. It is worthwhile to conduct large-scale, multiple centre clinical trials further to prove the safety and benefits for the integrative therapy on ALD.