Your new experience awaits. Try the new design now and help us make it even better

REVIEW article

Front. Pharmacol.

Sec. Ethnopharmacology

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1530194

Role and Mechanism of Botanical Drugs and their Metabolites in Osteoporosis: New Strategies for Clinical Application

Provisionally accepted
Yang XiujuanYang Xiujuan1Li YuqiLi Yuqi2Guo JingjingGuo Jingjing2Wang JiajiaWang Jiajia2Li ShuoLi Shuo2Yang ZhijunYang Zhijun2Niu PengxianNiu Pengxian2Jiang YiweiJiang Yiwei2*Song MinSong Min2*Hai YunxiangHai Yunxiang2*
  • 1College of Pharmacy, Gansu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Lanzhou, China
  • 2Gansu University of Chinese Medicine, Lanzhou, Gansu, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Select one of your emails

You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:

Notify me on publication

Please enter your email address:

If you already have an account, please login

You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here

Osteoporosis, the most prevalent bone disease worldwide, is characterized by reduced bone mineral density and microarchitectural deterioration. Current pharmacological agents for osteoporosis management include bisphosphonates, calcitonin, estrogen, denosumab, and romosozumab. However, emerging evidence suggests these therapies may increase risks of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, osteonecrosis, and cardiovascular diseases. Consequently, safer therapeutic alternatives are required. Traditional botanical drugs, recognized for their favorable safety profiles compared to synthetic drugs, demonstrate increasing potential in osteoporosis treatment. This review examines classical pathogenic mechanisms of osteoporosis-including estrogen deficiency, oxidative stress, and dysregulated bone metabolism-and summarizes traditional botanical drugs: Astragalus polysaccharides (APS), glycyrrhizin, Cistanche deserticola polysaccharides (CDP), Eucommia ulmoides polysaccharides (EUP), and Ligustrum lucidum derivatives. These findings provide critical insights into osteoporosis pathomechanisms and identify promising therapeutic candidates for clinical translation.

Keywords: Osteoporosis, Bone, Botanical drugs, Metabolites, Tonic, Treatment WHO, World Health Organization, OP, osteoporosis, MSCs, bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells, POP, primary osteoporosis, BMD, bone mineral density, TCM, traditional Chinese medicine, ROS, reactive oxygen species, OCs, osteoclasts

Received: 18 Nov 2024; Accepted: 18 Jul 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Xiujuan, Yuqi, Jingjing, Jiajia, Shuo, Zhijun, Pengxian, Yiwei, Min and Yunxiang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
Jiang Yiwei, Gansu University of Chinese Medicine, Lanzhou, 730000, Gansu, China
Song Min, Gansu University of Chinese Medicine, Lanzhou, 730000, Gansu, China
Hai Yunxiang, Gansu University of Chinese Medicine, Lanzhou, 730000, Gansu, China

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary Material