• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.38-57
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• 2019

Objective: This study reviewed recent clinical research trends regarding the effects of herbal medicine treatment containing diuretic herbs on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in China. Methods: We reviewed clinical studies on NAFLD from the China Academic Journal of the China National Knowledge Infrastructure from January 1, 2016, to September 10, 2018. Results: Thirty-nine papers from 86 studies were reviewed. The most commonly used herbal prescriptions included Alismatis Rhizoma(澤瀉), Salviae miltiorrhizae Radix (丹蔘), Crataegii Fructus (山査), Polia Sclerotium (茯?), Bupleuri Radix (柴胡), and Cassiae Semen (決明子). The treatment effective rate, liver function test, serum lipid test, radiological examination, and symptom comparisons were used to analyze the treatments. In 32 of the papers, the effective treatment rate was 76.9%-100%, and the effectiveness in the experimental group was significantly higher than that in the control group (p<0.05). The risk ratio for the treatment effective rate was 1.26. The mean difference of ALT was -13.44 U/L (95% confidential interval, -24.45 U/L, -2.44 U/L, p=0.0166). Conclusion: Herbal medicine containing diuretic herbs has been demonstrated to be an effective and useful treatment for NAFLD. Clinical studies that are more scientific and systematic should be actively conducted in the future, and the results of the current study could be used as basic data in future clinical studies on herbal medicine treatment for NAFLD.