Research Progress on the Interaction Between Herb Medicine and Anti-HIV Chemical Drugs

OBJECTIVE It is common for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients to use herb medicine due to all kinds of chance infections induced by low immunity. However, herb medicine is very complex, which may affect the clinical efficacy, safety of anti-HIV chemical drugs, even induce HIV resistance. In this work, we summarize the research progress of the interaction between herb and anti-HIV chemical drugs. METHODS Searched and summarized the papers with the key words of herb, anti-HIV drugs and drug-drug interaction from the internet of baidu (www.baidu.com) and pubmed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/). RESULTS We summarized the co-administration status of herb medicine and anti-HIV drugs, the effect of pharmacokinetic and human cytochromo P450 (CYP450) enzymes of herb medicine on the anti-HIV chemical drugs. CONCLUSION In this manuscript, we systematically summarized the interaction between herb medicine and anti-HIV drugs, which might offer some clues for clinical therapy.