REVIEW article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Ethnopharmacology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1637676
Sea buckthorn bioactive metabolites and their pharmacological potential in digestive diseases
Provisionally accepted
- 1The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
- 2Department of Clinical Pharmacy Laboratory, The First Affiliated Hospital of Baotou Medical College, Baotou, China
- 3Yantai University, Yantai, China
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Sea buckthorn is a botanical drug with a long history of medicinal use in treating digestive diseases. It is considered "a food with medicinal and edible homology", meaning it has various application scenarios. Sea buckthorn is known to have numerous bioactivities, such as anti-inflammatory, flora-regulating, immunoregulating, intestinal protective, and anticancer properties, as a potential natural therapy for digestive diseases. In both in vitro and in vivo experiments, ranging from cell lines to animal models and human patients, sea buckthorn has shown beneficial effects on symptoms associated with digestive disease. This study reviews the main bioactive metabolites of sea buckthorn and discusses their pharmacological effects and mechanisms in treating digestive diseases. In particular, we highlight bioactive metabolites isolated from sea buckthorn, their effects on inflammation, cancer, anti-Helicobacter pylori, radiation, and gut microbiota, and their molecular mechanisms of action in clinical applications. This article provides insight into the benefits of sea buckthorn, encouraging academic research in this area and the expansion of sea buckthorn-based applications for digestive diseases.
Keywords: sea buckthorn, digest disease, Bioactive metabolites, clinical trials, pharmacological mechanisms
Received: 29 May 2025; Accepted: 05 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Dong, Tang, Qiao, Dong and Cheng. 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: Jie Cheng, Department of Clinical Pharmacy Laboratory, The First Affiliated Hospital of Baotou Medical College, Baotou, 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.