Plants of the Genus Mahonia as a Potential Traditional Chinese Medicine for the Prevention and Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD), a prevalent multiple neurodegenerative disease, has gained attention, particularly in the aging population. However, presently available therapies merely focus on alleviating the symptoms of AD and fail to slow disease progression significantly. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been used to ameliorate symptoms or interfere with the pathogenesis of aging-associated diseases for many years based on disease-modifying in multiple pathological roles with multi-targets, multi-systems and multi-aspects. Mahonia species as a TCM present potential for anti-inflammatory activity, antioxidant activity, anti-acetylcholinesterase activity, and antiamyloid- beta activity that was briefly discussed in this review. They are regarded as promising drug candidates for AD therapy. The findings in this review support the use of Mahonia species as an alternative therapy source for treating AD.

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease; Anti-inflammatory activity; Mahonia species; anti-acetylcholinesterase activity.; antioxidant activities; traditional Chinese medicine.