Abstract Liver diseases are characterized by a prolonged course and numerous late-stage complications. Lycium barbarum polysaccharides (LBPs) are the main active ingredients of L. barbarum , a traditional Chinese herbal medicine that has been used for thousands of years. LBPs exhibit a wide range of pharmacological effects, such as antitumor, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant effects, showing broad application prospects in the clinical treatment of liver diseases. This article focuses on research conducted during the past two decades (2003–2025), summarizes the regulatory role of LBPs in different liver diseases, such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), alcoholic liver disease (ALD), liver fibrosis, drug-induced liver injury (DILI), and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and provides new therapeutic strategies for the treatment of liver diseases. We searched for digitized journal articles on the use of LBPs for the treatment of various liver diseases in the PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases, followed by searches using Google Scholar and Web of Science. In total, 172 papers were retrieved, and 33 papers were ultimately selected and included through screening and filtering. We summarized the regulatory role of LBPs in different liver diseases, such as Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), ALD, fibrosis, DILI, and HCC. LBPs play regulatory roles in various liver diseases, such as fatty liver, cirrhosis, and liver cancer, and exert favorable therapeutic effects on liver disease models in vitro and in vivo . However, further in-depth research on the mechanism of action of LBPs in the treatment of liver diseases is needed.
Wang et al. (Wed,) studied this question.