Progress on Active Analgesic Components and Mechanisms of Commonly Used Traditional Chinese Medicines: A Comprehensive Review

Abstract

Many clinical diseases are accompanied by the symptoms of pain, and the degree of pain is closely related to the patients’ suffering. Therefore, effectively relieving pain has become one of the vital concerns of clinical treatment and analgesic drug research. Non-opioid drugs are mainly used for the clinical treatment of mild to moderate pain, whereas opioid drugs are mainly used for treating moderate to severe pain. However, opioid drugs easily elicit adverse reactions, such as gastrointestinal discomfort, addiction, dependence, and so on. Traditional Chinese medicine and its active ingredients have unique advantages in the treatment of pain for quite a long time, and many analgesic drugs directly or indirectly were isolatiedfrom Chinese medicine or natural products, such as Liu Suan Yan Hu Suo Yi Su Pian and aspirin. With the development and modernization of research on herbal medicine more and more studies have been conducted on the active ingredients and mechanisms of traditional Chinese medicine analgesics. However, no review has been done on analgesic active components and their mechanisms. In this paper, 81 active components with clear chemical structure and definite analgesic effects in vivo and in vitro of traditional Chinese medicine and mechanisms of action reported in recent literatures are reviewed and summarized to provide reference for clinical analgesia and analgesics research.

Modular Characteristics and Mechanism of Action of Herbs for Endometriosis Treatment in Chinese Medicine: A Data Mining and Network Pharmacology–Based Identification

“…These cytokines are also responsible for excessive sensory innervation and the development of chronic pelvic pain (Kobayashi et al, 2014;. The results showed that Chinese herbs could reduce pain associated with the regulation of neurotransmitters (5-hydroxytryptamine, dopamine, and nervous system associated pathways (Wang et al, 2018).…”

Saving normal tissues – a goal for the ages

“…Interestingly, there is a significant move towards the testing of natural products during this period, particularly with respect to anti-oxidant compounds. This might be part of the global interest in dissecting the mechanisms and active ingredients found in herbal and traditional medicines (Li & Weng 2017;Wang et al 2018), but also likely reflects a desire to develop agents that have minimal toxicities that would otherwise limit future development, as occurred in the amifostine story.…”

Potential Activity of Medicinal Plants as Pain Modulators: A Review

“…2,4 Non-opioid drugs have been used in treatment of mild to moderate pain, while opioid drugs are used in the treatment of moderate pain. 5 Conventional therapy for neuropathic pain includes:…”

“…non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (ketorolac), opioids (morphine), tricyclic antidepressants (amitriptyline, duloxetine), and some anticonvulsants (gabapentin); 6 however, all these drugs have shown moderate efficacy, often being associated with adverse effects and use of opioid drugs, in most of the patients have generated addiction and its excessive use even produced death by overdose. 5 Classic analgesic drugs such as morphine, codeine and aspirin have been isolated from natural products, which has attracted the attention of many researchers as a source that could provide the discovery of new analgesic drugs. 5,7 In addition, medicinal plants and their metabolites have a reduced number of side effects and they are used as an unexpensive therapeutic resources for management of chronic pain.…”

“…5 Classic analgesic drugs such as morphine, codeine and aspirin have been isolated from natural products, which has attracted the attention of many researchers as a source that could provide the discovery of new analgesic drugs. 5,7 In addition, medicinal plants and their metabolites have a reduced number of side effects and they are used as an unexpensive therapeutic resources for management of chronic pain. 2,8 Evaluation of medicinal plants on pain has been studied using different experimental models including writhing test, light tail movement test, tail immersion test, hot plate test and formalin test.…”