- doi: 10.4103/0974-8490.157957
- Pharmacognosy Res. 2015 Jul-Sep
Guy-Armel Bounda1 and YU Feng1,2
Abstract
Polygonum multiflorum Thunb. (PMT), officially listed in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, is one of the most popular perennial Chinese traditional medicines known as He shou wu in China and East Asia, and as Fo-ti in North America. Mounting pharmacological studies have stressed out its key benefice for the treatment of various diseases and medical conditions such as liver injury, cancer, diabetes, alopecia, atherosclerosis, and neurodegenerative diseases as well. International databases such as PubMed/Medline, Science citation Index and Google Scholar were searched for clinical studies recently published on P. multiflorum. Various clinical studies published articles were retrieved, providing information relevant to pharmacokinetics-pharmacodynamics analysis, sleep disorders, dyslipidemia treatment, and neurodegenerative diseases. This review is an effort to update the clinical picture of investigations ever carried on PMT and/or its isolated bio-compounds and to enlighten its therapeutic assessment.
Keywords: Clinical pharmacokinetics, clinical studies, herbal hepatotoxicity, Polygonum multiflorum Thunb., therapeutic assessment
INTRODUCTION
Plants, herbs, and ethnobotanicals have been selected and used empirically as drugs for centuries, initially as traditional preparations then as pure active principles, with the knowledge and accumulated practice passing from generation to generation.[1,2] Medicinal plants are plants containing the substance that are used for therapeutic purposes or which are precursors for the synthesis of useful drugs.[3] Herbal Medicinal can be categorized into two broad parts. The first one includes complex of mixture containing a wide variety of compounds (e.g.: Infusions, essential oils, tinctures or extracts), and the second category refers them as pure, chemically define active principles.[4]
Polygonum multiflorum Thunb. (PMT, Polygonaceae family, Figure 1)), well known as He shou wu in China and Fo-ti in North America,[5] is one of the most popular perennial Chinese traditional medicinal vine-like herbs, officially listed in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia.[6] Various parts of the plants were utilized for different medicinal purposes. The leaves [Figure 2a], root tuber [Figure 2b] and rhizomes [Figure 2c] of this plant have been used as tonic and anti-aging agents[7,8,9,10,11,12] whereas the stem [Figure 2d] is used to alleviate insomnia and even to have an antidiabetic therapeutic activity as well.[13,14,15]
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