At the beginning of our era a famous doctor of antiquity Galen, following the teachings of Plato, considered the liver to be the area in which a part of the soul lives. Since ancient times the study of the liver, the largest human gland, has continued. In 1904 Russian physiologist I.P. Pavlov received the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the regularities of the work of the main digestive glands, including liver. And today, diseases of the digestive system remain an urgent problem of clinical medicine all over the world, attracting close attention of both practicing doctors and healthcare organizers. The number of people suffering from diseases of the gastrointestinal tract is increasing annually in Belarus. Liver diseases account for a significant proportion of them.What are the reasons for such a widespread of liver diseases? The fact is that the factors contributing to the development and / or occurrence of the disease surround us in everyday life.
The main are:
• excessive alcohol consumption;
• sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy diet;
• viral, bacterial and parasitic infections;
• intoxication of various kinds;
• genetic disorders and autoimmune diseases.
Under the influence of the above and a number of other factors, changes begin to develop in the liver, which ultimately lead to organ dysfunction.
The most common liver diseases are:
1.alcoholic hepatitis - inflammation of the liver as a result of many years of alcohol abuse, which has a toxic effect on liver tissue;
2. cholelithiasis - the formation of stones in the gallbladder and bile duct;
3. viral hepatitis A, B, C, etc. is an inflammation of the liver tissue caused by hepatitis viruses;
4. non-alcoholic fatty liver disease - a disease that is accompanied by the accumulation of fat in the liver, can be combined with diabetes mellitus, obesity and other metabolic diseases;
5. cirrhosis of the liver - a serious disease in which irreversible changes occur in the liver tissue with the replacement of normal cells with fibrous connective tissue;
6. liver cancer; It is also possible damage to liver tissue by metastases of cancer of another localization;
7.toxic hepatitis - caused by a direct toxic effect on the liver of poisonous mushrooms, alcohol substitutes, arsenic compounds, toluene, benzene, lead and other substances.
Among many medicines for the treatment of liver diseases, ursodeoxycholic acid (UCDA) drugs are distinguished. The history of UDCK discovery is interesting. Initially, it was extracted from bear bile, which is enshrined in the Latin name for the acid Ursodeoxycholic acid (ursus translates as "bear"). It is known that even ancient Chinise doctors used dry bear bile to treat liver diseases and gallbladder. The main component of this bile was, of course, UDCA, the concentration of which is especially high during the hibernation period of bears. The therapeutic effect of bear bile remained a mystery until the early 20th century. The year of discovery of UDCA can be considered 1902, when the Swedish biochemist Olaf Hammarsten (O. Hammarsten) isolated this substance from bear bile and gave its molecule the name "ursocholeic acid". However, more than half a century passed before UDCA was synthesized in 1954 by the Japanese scientist T. Kanazawa, and three years later, in 1957, Tokyo Tanabe (Japan) first synthesized UDCA and registered it. From that moment on UDCA was officially used in medicine.
The reason for the unflagging interest in UDH lies in its properties. The fact is that UDCA is a tertiary, hydrophilic bile acid. The content in the human body does not exceed 5% of the total amount of bile acids. The uniqueness of UDCA is that it is the only non-toxic in the group of bile acids; its properties determine the variety of effects. When taken orally UDCA is included in the enterohepatic circulation system, there is a dose-dependent increase in its share in the bile acid pool up to 50-75%. With cholestasis, while taking UDCA, the concentration of toxic bile acids (chenodeoxycholic, lithocholic, deoxycholic, etc.) decreases, which leads to a decrease in their damaging effect and helps to reduce clinical symptoms. Ursodeoxycholic acid induces choleresis with an increase in the amount of bicarbonates, which leads to an increase in the passage of bile and stimulates the excretion of toxic bile acids through the intestine - this increases the anticholestatic effect. The beneficial effects of UDCA on the liver themselves inhibit the progression of liver damage. Along with this, an independent immunomodulatory effect of UDCA was revealed, due to the inhibition of the expression of HLA antigens on the membranes of hepatocytes and cholangiocytes, a decrease in the activity of immunocompetent immunoglobulins (primarily Ig M), normalization of the natural killer activity of lymphocytes, the effect on the formation of interleukin and einophiles.
Ursocaps is available in a convenient dosage (250 mg of ursodeoxycholic acid in 1 capsule), which allows you to select the dose of the medicine for each patient individually depending on the disease.
For more information on the use of Ursocaps: https://www.rceth.by/Refbank/reestr_lekarstvennih_sredstv/results
Numerous articles have been published on the properties of UDCA including results of clinical trials of Ursocaps and COMPARATIVE BIOAVAILABILITY OF TWO DOSAGE FORMS OF URSODEOXYCHOLIC ACID - MEDICINES URSOCAPS® AND URSOFALC® http://www.mic.by/upload/iblock/abd/ursokaps_2011.pdf
The uniqueness of the structure and the variety of mechanisms of action inspire scientists to look for new possibilities of using ursodeoxycholic acid for the therapeutic correction of diseases.
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