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Dong Quai
''Angelica sinensis'', commonly known as ''dong quai'' () or female ginseng, is a herb belonging to the family Apiaceae, indigenous to China. ''Angelica sinensis'' grows in cool high altitude mountains in East Asia. The yellowish brown root of the plant is harvested in the fall and is a well-known Chinese medicine which has been used for thousands of years. Pharmacology Growing environment Angelica is hardy to and can be cultivated at elevations of . Seedlings need to be kept out of direct sunlight, but the mature plant can withstand it. Angelica requires deep moist fertile soil and is perennial if prevented from going to seed. Traditional Chinese medicine The dried root of ''A. sinensis'' commonly known as Chinese angelica () is widely used in traditional Chinese medicine, although there is insufficient evidence that it has any medicinal effect. Adverse effects There is evidence that ''A. sinensis'' may affect the muscles of the uterus. Women who are pregnant or planning o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daniel Oliver (botanist)
Daniel Oliver, FRS (6 February 1830, Newcastle upon Tyne – 21 December 1916) was an English botanist. He was Librarian of the Herbarium, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from 1860–1890 and Keeper there from 1864–1890, and Professor of Botany at University College, London from 1861–1888. In 1864, while at UCL, he published ''Lessons in Elementary Biology'', based upon material left in manuscript by John Stevens Henslow, and illustrated by Henslow's daughter, Anne Henslow Barnard of Cheltenham. With a second edition in 1869 and a third in 1878 this book was reprinted until at least 1891. Oliver regarded this book as suitable for use in schools and for young people remote from the classroom and laboratory. He was elected a member of the Linnean Society, awarded their Gold Medal in 1893, and awarded a Royal Medal by the Royal Society in 1884. He married in 1861 and was the father of two daughters and a son, Francis Wall Oliver. In 1895, botanist Tiegh published '' Oliverella'', a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polysaccharide
Polysaccharides (), or polycarbohydrates, are the most abundant carbohydrates found in food. They are long chain polymeric carbohydrates composed of monosaccharide units bound together by glycosidic linkages. This carbohydrate can react with water (hydrolysis) using amylase enzymes as catalyst, which produces constituent sugars (monosaccharides, or oligosaccharides). They range in structure from linear to highly branched. Examples include storage polysaccharides such as starch, glycogen and galactogen and structural polysaccharides such as cellulose and chitin. Polysaccharides are often quite heterogeneous, containing slight modifications of the repeating unit. Depending on the structure, these macromolecules can have distinct properties from their monosaccharide building blocks. They may be amorphous or even insoluble in water. When all the monosaccharides in a polysaccharide are the same type, the polysaccharide is called a homopolysaccharide or homoglycan, but when more t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plants Used In Traditional Chinese Medicine
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclude the fungi and some algae, as well as the prokaryotes (the archaea and bacteria). By one definition, plants form the clade Viridiplantae (Latin name for "green plants") which is sister of the Glaucophyta, and consists of the green algae and Embryophyta (land plants). The latter includes the flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns and their allies, hornworts, liverworts, and mosses. Most plants are multicellular organisms. Green plants obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts that are derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria. Their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic or mycotrophic and have lost the ability ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dietary Supplements
A dietary supplement is a manufactured product intended to supplement one's diet by taking a pill (pharmacy), pill, capsule (pharmacy), capsule, tablet (pharmacy), tablet, powder, or liquid. A supplement can provide nutrients either extracted from food sources or that are synthetic in order to increase the quantity of their consumption. The class of nutrient compounds includes vitamins, Dietary mineral, minerals, Dietary fiber, fiber, fatty acids, and amino acids. Dietary supplements can also contain substances that have not been confirmed as being essential to life, but are marketed as having a beneficial biological effect, such as plant pigments or polyphenols. Animals can also be a source of supplement ingredients, such as collagen from chickens or fish for example. These are also sold individually and in combination, and may be combined with nutrient ingredients. The European Commission has also established harmonized rules to help insure that food supplements are safe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flora Of Eastern Asia
Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. Etymology The word "flora" comes from the Latin name of Flora, the goddess of plants, flowers, and fertility in Roman mythology. The technical term "flora" is then derived from a metonymy of this goddess at the end of the sixteenth century. It was first used in poetry to denote the natural vegetation of an area, but soon also assumed the meaning of a work cataloguing such vegetation. Moreover, "Flora" was used to refer to the flowers of an artificial garden in the seventeenth century. The distinction between vegetation (the general appearance of a community) and flora (the taxonomic composition of a community) was first made by Jules Thurmann (1849). Prior to this, the two terms were used indiscriminately.Thurmann, J. (1849). ''Essai de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eleutherococcus Senticosus
''Eleutherococcus senticosus'' is a species of small, woody shrub in the family Araliaceae native to Northeastern Asia. It may be colloquially called devil's bush, Siberian ginseng, eleuthero, ''ciwujia'', ''Devil's shrub'', ''shigoka'', ''touch-me-not'', ''wild pepper'', or ''kan jang''. ''E. senticosus'' has a history of use in folklore and traditional Chinese medicine. Root extracts of ''E. senticosus'' are sold as a dietary supplement or cosmetic, usually under the name ''Siberian ginseng''. Etymology The scientific name (genus), ''Eleutherococcus'' (from Greek) means "free-berried," and ''senticosus'', (from Latin) means ''sentis'' (thorn-bush, briar), an adjective meaning "thorny" or "full of briers or thorns." It is not the same plant as American ginseng (''Panax quinquefolius'') or Asian ginseng (''Panax ginseng''). It has a diversity of common names across its range of distribution. Distribution and habitat The herb grows in mixed and coniferous mountain forests, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scutellaria Baicalensis
''Scutellaria baicalensis'', with the common name Baikal skullcap or Chinese skullcap, is a species of flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae. Distribution The plant is native to China, Korea, Mongolia, and Russia in the Russian Far East and Siberia. Medicinal plant Traditional Chinese medicine It is one of the 50 fundamental herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine, where it has the name ''huángqín'' (). As a Chinese traditional medicine, ''huang qin'' usually refers to the dried root of ''S. baicalensis'' Georgi, ''S. viscidula'' Bge., ''S. amoena'' C.H. Wright, and ''S. ikoninkovii'' Ju. Its use in TCM is for "the prophylaxis and treatment of hepatitis, atherosclerosis, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, type 2 diabetes, dysentery, ulcerative colitis, and respiratory disorders." Pharmacology Several chemical compounds have been isolated from the root; baicalein, baicalin, wogonin, norwogonin, oroxylin A and β-sitosterol are the major ones. Names It is important to use t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Herbology
Chinese herbology () is the theory of traditional Chinese herbal therapy, which accounts for the majority of treatments in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). A ''Nature'' editorial described TCM as "fraught with pseudoscience", and said that the most obvious reason why it has not delivered many cures is that the majority of its treatments have no logical mechanism of action. The term herbology is misleading in the sense that, while plant elements are by far the most commonly used substances, animal, human, and mineral products are also utilized, among which some are poisonous. In the ''Huangdi Neijing'' they are referred to as () which means toxin, poison, or medicine. Paul U. Unschuld points out that this is similar etymology to the Greek '' pharmakon'' and so he uses the term "pharmaceutic". Thus, the term "medicinal" (instead of herb) is usually preferred as a translation for (). Research into the effectiveness of traditional Chinese herbal therapy is of poor quality and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angelica
''Angelica'' is a genus of about 60 species of tall biennial and perennial herbs in the family Apiaceae, native to temperate and subarctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere, reaching as far north as Iceland, Lapland, and Greenland. They grow to tall, with large bipinnate leaves and large compound umbels of white or greenish-white flowers. Found mainly in China, its main use was for medicine. It shows variations in fruit anatomy, leaf morphology, and subterranean structures. The genes are extremely polymorphic. Some species can be found in purple moor and rush pastures. Characteristics ''Angelica'' species grow to tall, with large bipinnate leaves and large compound umbels of white or greenish-white flowers. Their large, sparkling, starburst flowers are pollinated by a great variety of insects (the generalist pollination syndrome), the floral scents are species-specific, and even specific to particular subspecies. The active ingredients of angelica are found in the roots and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flavonoid
Flavonoids (or bioflavonoids; from the Latin word ''flavus'', meaning yellow, their color in nature) are a class of polyphenolic secondary metabolites found in plants, and thus commonly consumed in the diets of humans. Chemically, flavonoids have the general structure of a 15-carbon skeleton, which consists of two phenyl rings (A and B) and a heterocyclic ring (C, the ring containing the embedded oxygen). This carbon structure can be abbreviated C6-C3-C6. According to the IUPAC nomenclature, they can be classified into: *flavonoids or bioflavonoids *isoflavonoids, derived from 3-phenyl chromen-4-one (3-phenyl-1,4-benzopyrone) structure *neoflavonoids, derived from 4-phenylcoumarine (4-phenyl-1,2-benzopyrone) structure The three flavonoid classes above are all ketone-containing compounds and as such, anthoxanthins ( flavones and flavonols). This class was the first to be termed bioflavonoids. The terms flavonoid and bioflavonoid have also been more loosely used to describe non ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sodium Ferulate
Sodium ferulate, the sodium salt of ferulic acid, is a compound used in traditional Chinese medicine thought to be useful for treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and to prevent thrombosis, although there is no high-quality clinical evidence for such effects. It is found in the root of ''Angelica sinensis''. As of 2005, it was under preliminary clinical research in China. Ferulic acid can also be extracted from the root of the Chinese herb '' Ligusticum chuanxiong''. Kraft Foods patented the use of sodium ferulate to mask the aftertaste of the artificial sweetener A sugar substitute is a food additive that provides a sweetness like that of sugar while containing significantly less food energy than sugar-based sweeteners, making it a zero-calorie () or low-calorie sweetener. Artificial sweeteners may be d ... acesulfame potassium. (expired in 2006 due to non-payment of fees) References {{Purinergics Dietary supplements Food additives Bitter-maski ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
P-cymene
''p''-Cymene is a naturally occurring aromatic organic compound. It is classified as an alkylbenzene related to a monoterpene. Its structure consists of a benzene ring ''para''-substituted with a methyl group and an isopropyl group. ''p''-Cymene is insoluble in water, but miscible with organic solvents. Isomers and production In addition to ''p''-cymene, two less common geometric isomers are ''o''-cymene, in which the alkyl groups are ''ortho''-substituted, and ''m''-cymene, in which they are ''meta''-substituted. ''p''-Cymene is the only natural isomer, as expected from the terpene rule. All three isomers form the group of cymenes. Cymene is also produced by alkylation of toluene with propylene. Related compounds It is a constituent of a number of essential oils, most commonly the oil of cumin and thyme. Significant amounts are formed in sulfite pulping process from the wood terpenes. ''p''-Cymene is a common ligand for ruthenium. The parent compound is 2.html" ;"tit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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