Medicinal Plants and Fungi Are Pushing Functional Foods Into New Territory

Ancient plant remedies and medicinal fungi are attracting serious scientific attention again, this time inside the disciplined framework of pharmacology, food science, and biotechnology. A new editorial published in Frontiers in Pharmacology by Zhong, Song, Bao, Li, and Zhang surveys eight recent studies on medicinal and health food plants and fungi (MHFP) and their potential as functional foods and nutraceuticals. The work is still early and largely preclinical, but it points toward a coherent research agenda for turning traditional botanical knowledge into evidence-backed health products.

Bletilla oligosaccharides and chemotherapy-induced gut injury

One of the most striking findings in the editorial involves Bletilla oligosaccharides, compounds derived from Bletilla striata, a ground orchid used for centuries in Chinese medicine. In a mouse model, these oligosaccharides improved 5-fluorouracil-induced intestinal mucositis, a painful and debilitating side effect of chemotherapy that damages the gut lining and disrupts normal digestion. The mechanism, according to the editorial, ran through the TLR4-NF-kB/MyD88 signaling pathway, a well-characterised inflammatory cascade, while simultaneously reshaping gut microbiota composition. The authors frame this as a potential novel dietary supplement for chemotherapeutic intestinal mucositis, though it is worth being clear: this is mouse data, not a clinical trial. The gap between a mouse study and a proven human intervention is substantial, and the editorial itself acknowledges that pharmacokinetic and toxicological data remain insufficient to understand how active metabolites are absorbed, distributed, and metabolised in people.

Why gut health sits at the centre of this research

The emphasis on gut microbiota across multiple studies in this collection is not accidental. Researchers increasingly suspect that many of the health effects attributed to herbal compounds arrive indirectly, via shifts in gut bacterial populations rather than direct pharmacological action. Functional foods have shown promise for reducing chronic disease risk including cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, and the gut microbiome is emerging as one plausible route through which dietary interventions achieve those outcomes. The editorial notes that clinical effects of some herbal innovations were potentially linked to gut microbiota modifications, though it cautions that much of this research remains at the level of compositional description without functional validation. In plain terms: researchers can see which bacteria increase or decrease after treatment, but they have not yet proven that those bacterial changes are causing the health benefits rather than merely correlating with them.

A second animal study in the collection reinforces this theme. Huoxiang Zhengqi dropping pills, a preparation derived from a classical Chinese herbal formula, alleviated multiple organ injury caused by exertional heat stroke in rats. The mechanism involved sustaining intestinal homeostasis through the MAPK/NF-kB pathway and modulating gut microbiota. Exertional heat stroke is a life-threatening condition with limited treatment options, making this an intriguing lead, even if the rat model leaves the translation to humans entirely unproven.

Multi-level evidence from chemical characterisation to clinical evaluation

The editorial's methodological ambition is to support research across what it calls multi-level scientific evidence, from chemical characterisation and mechanistic investigation all the way to clinical evaluation. That is a wider spectrum than most individual studies attempt, and it is one reason the collection spans such varied techniques: signalling pathway analysis, microbiota profiling, extraction optimisation, and bioavailability testing all appear across the eight studies. Traditional herbal preparation methods have long preserved and sometimes enhanced the medicinal components of plants, and modern researchers are now working to understand exactly why that is and how to replicate it at scale with consistent, standardised products. Key technical challenges include improving extraction processes for bioactive compounds and ensuring those compounds remain stable and bioavailable once incorporated into a food or supplement matrix. A polyphenol that degrades during food processing, or one that is poorly absorbed in the gut, delivers little of its theoretical benefit.

Open questions about safety, pharmacokinetics, and functional validation

The editorial is candid about how much remains unknown. Three limitations stand out. First, most mechanistic investigations focus on single signalling pathways, which leaves the broader network of interactions unmapped. A compound that modulates TLR4-NF-kB may be doing many other things simultaneously, some potentially harmful. Second, gut microbiota studies in this field tend to describe compositional changes rather than prove functional consequences, so the causal story linking herbal intervention to health outcome remains incomplete. Third, and most practically, insufficient pharmacokinetic and toxicological data limit understanding of how active metabolites behave in the body over time. These gaps echo longstanding challenges in nutraceutical development more broadly, where authentic raw material sourcing, regulatory oversight, and controlled clinical evidence have historically lagged behind commercial enthusiasm. The authors are raising a flag that the field needs to address these gaps systematically, not compound them by rushing to market.

What the next wave of MHFP research needs to deliver

Zhong and colleagues frame their editorial as a call for interdisciplinary collaboration across pharmacology, food science, and biotechnology. For MHFP research to meaningfully advance public health, the next studies need to move beyond single-pathway mechanistic snapshots and toward network-level analyses, properly powered clinical trials, and rigorous long-term safety profiling. The goal, as the editorial puts it, is to optimise MHFP for effective and sustainable functional foods and nutraceuticals, not just to demonstrate that a plant extract does something interesting in a petri dish or a rodent. The Bletilla oligosaccharide and Huoxiang Zhengqi findings illustrate both the genuine promise and the current ceiling of this work. They are compelling enough to justify further investment; they are nowhere near ready to inform clinical practice. That distinction matters, and the editorial is to its credit in making it.

Evidence rating

INVESTIGATIONAL — 55/100

Caveats:

• This is an editorial overview summarizing eight other studies, not a primary research article — it generates no new data of its own.
• The highlighted animal studies (mice and rats) have not been replicated in humans.
• Gut microbiota findings are described as compositional observations without functional validation.
• No funding source was disclosed for this editorial.

This article is an editorial introduction summarizing a collection of eight studies on medicinal and health food plants and fungi; it presents no original data. The referenced primary studies are largely preclinical (mouse and rat models), and gut microbiota findings within those studies are limited to compositional description without functional validation. No independent replication of the highlighted findings has been reported.

References

1. X Zhong, M Song, H Bao, M Li, C Zhang (2026). Exploring Herbal Innovations New Frontiers in Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals Development. Frontiers in Pharmacology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2026.1889707
2. Zsuzsa Emma Hajzer, Walaa Alibrahem, Nihad Kharrat Helu, Csaba Oláh, József Prokisch (2025). Functional Foods in Clinical Trials and Future Research Directions. Foods. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods14152675
3. Mst Sharmin Khatun, Sreemoy kanti Das, Mohammad Gousuddin (2025). Herbal Functional Foods: Traditional Uses and Modern Scientific Evidence. International Journal of Biotechnology and Biomedicine. https://doi.org/10.31674/ijbb.2025.v02i02.004
4. Rafat A. Siddiqui, Mohammed H. Moghadasian (2020). Nutraceuticals and Nutrition Supplements: Challenges and Opportunities. Nutrients. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12061593