REVIEW article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Ethnopharmacology
Sea Buckthorn for Skin and Mucosal Health: An Anti-inflammatory Perspective
Provisionally accepted
- Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China
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The skin and mucosal barriers serve as essential frontline defenses, protecting against pathogens, environmental insults, and excessive water loss while maintaining physiological homeostasis. Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides), a plant long utilized in traditional medicine, has recently garnered scientific attention for its therapeutic potential in enhancing barrier integrity. Modern studies reveal that its bioactive compounds—including flavonoids, unsaturated fatty acids, vitamins, and carotenoids—exert multifaceted pharmacological effects, such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and tissue-repair properties. These mechanisms not only reinforce barrier function but also mitigate inflammation and accelerate healing. This review synthesizes current evidence on sea buckthorn's multi-target anti-inflammatory actions and its implications for skin and mucosal health through a unique lens of the inflammatory cascade. By elucidating its molecular and cellular effects across distinct stages of inflammation, we provide a foundation for translating these insights into novel dermatological and mucosal therapeutics. The findings underscore the untapped potential of natural products in barrier protection and regenerative medicine, paving the way for future clinical applications.
Keywords: sea buckthorn, Inflammation, Skin, mucosal, Nutraceuticals
Received: 18 Jun 2025; Accepted: 28 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Song, sun, Yuan, Tang and Zheng. 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:
Yang Tang, tangyang@bucm.edu.cn
Fengjie Zheng, zhengfengjie@bucm.edu.cn
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.