Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 22, Issue 3, 2016

Monoamine oxidase (MAO, E.C. 1.4.3.4) is a flavin-adenine type of enzyme with two isoforms referred to MAO-A and MAO-B that function for oxidation of monoamines. While MAO-A inhibitors are effective as antidepressant and anxiolytic drugs (e.g. chlorgyline, moclobemide, and lazabemide), inhibitors of MAO-B (e.g. Ldeprenyl, pargyline, and rasagiline) are used against neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkin Read More

Autism is a comprehensive growth abnormality in which social skills, language, communication, and behavioral skills are developed with delay and as diversionary. The reasons for autism are unclear, but various theories of genetics, immunity, biological, and psychosocial factors have been proffered. In fact, autism is a complex disorder with distinct causes that usually co-occur. Although no medicine has been recognized to Read More

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is inherently a hepatotropic virus that causes acute and chronic hepatitis in about one-third of world population. Of the estimated 360 million chronically infected individuals, more than one million die of liver cirrhosis, fulminant liver failure or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) every year. Though there is an effective vaccine available, failure to protection because of vaccine-escape viral mutants in some Read More

Guggulsterone [4, 17(20)-pregnadiene-3, 16-dione] is a plant sterol derived from the gum resin of the tree Commiphora wightii. The gum resin of the guggul tree has been used in traditional medicine for centuries to treat obesity, liver disorders, internal tumors, malignant sores, ulcers, urinary complaints, intestinal worms, leucoderma, sinus, edema and sudden paralytic seizures. Guggulsterone has been shown to modulate the Read More

Esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) is the second frequent cancer of the esophagus. Barrett’s esophagus (BE) takes precedence over EAC. BE is a metaplastic change of the stratified squamous epithelium to the intestinal columnar epithelium due to the acidic gastrointestinal reflux. Further, the disease takes the hyperplastic stage followed by EAC. An initial immune response is an essential reaction of a body to an occurrence of Read More

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a theoretical based system and is completely different from western medicine and states that numerous diseases, especially chronic diseases, are cured or relieved. “Zheng” (syndrome) is a summarization of the pathological changes which take place during the different stages of the development of a disease, including its location, cause and nature as well as the state of both Xie-qi (p Read More

Objective: To search major Islamic Traditional Medicine (ITM) textbooks for definition, etiology and medicinal plants used to manage ‘khadar’ or ‘paresthesia’, a common sensory symptom of multiple sclerosis (MS) and peripheral neuropathies. In addition, the conformity of the efficacy of ITM-suggested plants with the findings from modern pharmacological research on MS will be discussed. Methods: Data on the medicinal plan Read More

Herba Epimedii (HEP) known as YinYangHuo in Chinese is the dried leaf of the Epimediium, and has been historically used in combination with other herbs to treat skeletal diseases in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Here, we review the historical TCM interpretation of the action of HEP, its use in clinical trials, its main phytochemical constituents and its pharmacological findings. 85 clinical trials were identified which used HEP in Read More

Regarding limited effectiveness of many hepatic medical approaches, seeking for novel treatment strategies is crucial to improve outcomes. Hence, the current study aims to compile a concise but critical review over reported liver diseases and related medicinal plants from the Persian medicine perspectives. To this end, five main pharmaceutical manuscripts of Persian medicine from 9th-18th A.D. as well as the latest a Read More

AIMS: High levels of plasma triglycerides (TG) are a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases often associated with anomalies in other lipids or lipoproteins. However, results from randomized trials, suggesting that low high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLc) might not cause cardiovascular disease, as originally thought, have generated renewed interest in increased concentrations of TG. The objective has bee Read More

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are considered the leading cause of morbidity and mortality from chronic diseases in the world. In addition, about 20% of first and recurrent acute myocardial infarctions (MI) are silent. In this context, subclinical atherosclerosis culminates in evident CVD, through the evolution of early risk factors such as hypercholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia and others. The main problem in CVD is related to Read More

Recent studies have shown that visit-to-visit blood pressure (BP) variability was emerging as an independent risk factor for stroke. Although the mechanism is not fully understood, artery remodeling would be closely associated with the relationship between visit-to-visit BP variability and stroke. In addition, the class of antihypertensive agents is suggested to be an important determinant of visit-to-visit BP variability. This re Read More

Cardiovascular diseases are currently a basic cause of mortality in highly developed countries. The major reason for genesis and development of cardiovascular diseases is atherosclerosis. At the present time high technology methods of molecular genetic diagnostics can significantly simplify early presymptomatic recognition of patients with atherosclerosis, to detect risk groups and to perform a family analysis of this patholog Read More

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small regulatory RNAs that control several cellular processes that may contribute to development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and the pathophysiological consequences of myocardial infarction (MI). Only a very small-numbers of biomarkers in MI (e.g., Troponin) have been identified, which are sufficiently sensitive, specific and robust. There is growing evidence of an association Read More