New Perspectives on Chinese Herbal Medicine (Zhong-Yao) Research and Development

Abstract

Synthetic chemical drugs, while being efficacious in the clinical management of many diseases, are often associated with undesirable side effects in patients. It is now clear that the need of therapeutic intervention in many clinical conditions cannot be satisfactorily met by synthetic chemical drugs. Since the research and development of new chemical drugs remain time-consuming, capital-intensive and risky, much effort has been put in the search for alternative routes for drug discovery in China. This narrative review illustrates various approaches to the research and drug discovery in Chinese herbal medicine. Although this article focuses on Chinese traditional drugs, it is also conducive to the development of other traditional remedies and innovative drug discovery.

Chinese Herbal Medicine for Osteoporosis: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trails

“…Plants are rich in a variety of compounds. It may therefore be necessary to identify the active ingredient(s) from a herbal extract for mechanistic investigations [22, 23]. Up till now, many active ingredients have been isolated from commonly used CHM [24].…”

“…These variabilities can result in significant differences in pharmacological activity, making standardization of botanical difficult [25]. At the present time, there are 15 major categories of active ingredients in CHM, including flavones, alkaloids, glucides, glycosides, volatile oils, resins, phytochromes, organic acids, amino acids, tannins, proteins, enzymes, trace elements, polysaccharides, and mineral salts [23]. …”

Medicinal Potentials and Toxicity Concerns of Bioactive Principles

“…Moreover, recent review showed that certain alkaloids are medicinally applied as local anesthetic [70], stimulants -(caffeine, nicotine, threobromine, methylated derivatives of xanthine, methylated uric acids such as theacrine, methylliberine and libertine [7]), psychedelics, analgesics -(morphine [72,73], codeine [41], N-methyl-N-deethylaconitine [74]), bactericidal-(piperidine [75], harmandiamines A-C [76]), anti-cancer drugs -(camptothecin, vinblastine, vincristine [7,77]), anti-hypertensive agents -(serpentine [78][79][80][81]), cholinomimerics -(aceclidine [41]), spasmolysis agents - [82], vasodilators -(rutaecarpine [83]), anti-arrhythmia, anti-asthma [41], anti-malarials (quinine and artemisinin [7]) etc.…”

Cardioprotective effects of traditional Chinese medicine Guanmaitong on acute myocardial infarction

“…Guanmaitong (GMT) consists primarily of the herbs Salvia miltiorrhiza , Safflower ( Carthamus tinctorius ) and Polygonum multiflorum , has been applied to the treatment of CHDs such as angina pectoris and myocardial ischemia in China (9). The three medicinal herbs are commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine and have previously been shown to be physiologically active in human vascular endothelial cells (10).…”