Herbal therapy: a new pathway for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease

It has been a clinical challenge to treat Alzheimer's disease (AD). In the present commentary we discuss whether herbal therapy could be a novel treatment method for AD on the basis of results from clinical trials, and discuss the implications for potential therapy for AD pathophysiology. There is evidence to suggest that single herbs or herbal formulations may offer certain complementary cognitive benefits to the approved drugs. The current evidence supporting their use alone, however, is inconclusive or inadequate owing to many methodological limitations. Herbal mixtures may have advantages with multiple target regulation compared with the single-target antagonist in the view of traditional Chinese medicine. Several clinical trials using herbal mixtures are being conducted in China and will hopefully show promising results for treating AD in the near future.