Improving the Effectiveness of Intentional Rounding: A Quality Improvement Project.

With the accelerating trend of global population aging, aging-related cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative disorders, and metabolic syndrome have become major public health challenges in the 21st century []. Against this backdrop, scientific and public attention has increasingly shifted from disease treatment alone toward prevention and the promotion of healthy aging. Nature-derived interventions, particularly bioactive compounds from medicinal and edible plants, have attracted growing research interest because of their potential to modulate multiple biological processes associated with aging []. Medicine–food homology materials also serve as traditional dietary resources and sources of chemically diverse bioactive constituents, supporting their investigation as ingredients for functional foods and nutraceuticals []. The original framework proposed nine hallmarks of aging in 2013. [] An updated framework subsequently expanded this concept to 12 interconnected hallmarks by additionally recognizing disabled macroautophagy, chronic inflammation, and dysbiosis as distinct components of aging biology []. A growing body of evidence suggests that phytochemicals from medicinal and edible plants, including polyphenols, flavonoids, saponins, and polysaccharides, may modulate several of these interconnected aging-related processes through multi-target and multi-pathway mechanisms. Nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) is a central regulator of endogenous antioxidant defense, and components such as curcumin may enhance cellular resistance to oxidative damage by activating Nrf2 signaling []. Persistent activation of nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) is associated with chronic inflammation, whereas astragaloside IV and polysaccharides have been reported to modulate NF-κB-related inflammatory signaling. The adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK)/sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) pathway is an important energy-sensing cascade involved in mitochondrial function and metabolic homeostasis, with ginsenosides reported as potential regulators of this pathway []. Although existing studies have provided substantial evidence for the anti-aging potential of medicinal and edible plants, significant bottlenecks remain in this field: research evidence is highly fragmented, nano-delivery technology and molecular mechanism studies are disconnected from each other, the bioavailability of phytochemicals is insufficient due to low solubility and poor stability, and the translational gap from preclinical to clinical stages remains substantial, particularly because many delivery-system studies focus on physicochemical characterization rather than direct validation of aging-related molecular outcomes and long-term clinical efficacy [,]. These challenges are consistent with a recent review of flavonoids from medicine–food homology substances, which highlighted source- and processing-dependent compositional variability, difficulties in quality control, poor solubility, and low bioavailability as major barriers to practical application []. Moreover, regulatory frameworks for medicinal and edible products vary significantly across countries and regions, further complicating product standardization and market translation [,]. Several recent reviews have summarized the anti-aging potential of traditional plant-based foods, edible medicinal plants, medicine–food homology plants, and naturally derived bioactive compounds. Das et al. [] reviewed the anti-aging effects of traditional plant-based foods, whereas Iweala et al. [] summarized bioactive phytoconstituents from edible medicinal plants and their proposed mechanisms. Bjørklund et al. [] provided a broader overview of natural compounds and products from an anti-aging perspective, and Zhu et al. [] recently focused on plant-based anti-aging strategies involving medicine–food homology plants. These reviews establish an important foundation for the field. However, an integrated assessment that simultaneously distinguishes molecular plausibility, delivery-system performance, study-type-specific methodological quality, and the certainty of human clinical evidence remains valuable.