Progress on the mechanism of natural polysaccharides in the treatment of arthritis

Arthritis is a common joint-injury disease, and because its exact etiology and pathogenesis remain incompletely understood, current treatment options for it are highly limited. Conventional treatments focus on anti-inflammatory drugs to alleviate the disease. However, long-term use of these medications can cause increasingly serious side effects. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop safe and effective anti-arthritis drugs with fewer side effects. Polysaccharides derived from natural products have received a lot of attention because of their safety and multiple active effects, wherein they have shown strong potential especially in the treatment of arthritis. However, a systematic presentation of polysaccharides against arthritis is still lacking. In this paper, we summarize the recent studies on natural polysaccharides for arthritis treatment mainly in terms of isolation, structure-anti-arthritic relationship, pharmacokinetics, mechanisms, and association of polysaccharides with other substances. It is helpful for researchers to fully understand the anti-arthritic effects of polysaccharides and provide some references for the development and application of polysaccharides in arthritis treatment.