The Japanese Traditional Medicine That Reduces Fat & Fibrosis

First, for any unfamiliar with what fibrosis is: it’s scar tissue found inside organs and muscles, caused not by external injury, but rather by inflammation of various kinds, including due to aging and metabolic dysfunction.

We’ve previously written about fibrosis of various kinds in places such as:

• What Diabetes Does To Your Heart
• Are You Inhaling Microplastics In Your House?
• Occasional Drinking? 3x Risk Of Liver Scarring
• 6 Things That Quietly Damage Your Kidneys Every Day

So, what’s this about Japanese traditional medicine?

Bofutsushosan to the rescue?

Bofutsushosan (BTS) is a traditional Japanese Kampo medicine used for weight loss, and it now seems (from early trials, at least) that it can also reduce age-related fibrosis.

In a recent study by a team of Japanese researchers (Dr. Ayano Onishi et al.) to assess direct anti-fibrotic effects independent of weight loss, she and her team tested each of BTS’s 18 herbal and mineral ingredients individually.

Of those, these four:

• Forsythiae fructus (lian qiao)
  • Per: Hepatoprotective effect of Forsythiae Fructus water extract against carbon tetrachloride-induced liver fibrosis in mice
• Zingiberis rhizoma (ginger rhizome)
  • Per: Intra-peritoneal lavage of Zingiber officinale rhizome and its active constituent gingerol impede inflammation, angiogenesis, and fibrosis following post-operative peritoneal adhesion in male rats
• Rhei rhizoma (rhubarb rhizome)
  • Per: Herbal medicine Rhei rhizome prevents liver fibrosis in rat liver cirrhosis induced by a choline-deficient L-amino acid-defined diet
• Scutellariae radix (Baikal skullcap root)
  • Per: Inhibitory effect of Scutellariae Radix on hepatic fibrosis based on urinary metabonomics

…showed the strongest anti-fibrotic activity. In contrast, one of the common mineral ingredients, sal mirabilis, had the opposite effect, so that’s one to watch out for.

However, did you notice the distinctly rodent-centric theme of the studies? For whatever reason, there have been a lot more non-human animal studies, and a lot that simply has not yet been rested in humans, so that is something to bear in mind as while usually things translate to humans, it’s not always so. Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) for weight loss is a great example of this: CLA for Weight Loss? ← works fabulously in so many non-human animals, but for some unknown reason, not in us.

As Dr. Onishi herself put it:

❝Bofutsushosan is best known for its effects on obesity. Our findings suggest that it may also act on fibrosis associated with aging and obesity. Understanding the role of each ingredient could help guide future research into Kampo medicines, but human studies will be needed before the findings can be applied to treatment❞

You can read the paper in full, here: Identification of anti-fibrotic components of Bofutsushosan under conditions of age-associated obesity in mice

Want to do more meanwhile?

As well as the articles we linked up top today, there are other things that can be done to reduce fibrosis risk, and/but nearly all of them are just different ways of approaching the same problem, namely, tackling chronic inflammation.

So, with that in mind, here’s a good starting point: How to Prevent (or Reduce) Inflammation

And for more, you might consider:

The Complete Anti-Inflammatory Diet for Beginners – by Dorothy Calimeris and Lulu Cook

Or, for that matter:

Healthy Cook’s Anti-Inflammatory Diet & Cookbook – by Dr. Albert Orbinati

Enjoy!