INHIBITORY ACTION OF PROCESSED HERBAL MEDICINES ON THE PRODUCTION OF ADVANCED GLYCATION ENDPRODUCTS(AGEs)

Diabetic nephropathy is major chronic complication of diabetes mellitus. Advanced glycation endproducts(AGEs) are largely involved in the pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy. The irreversibly formed AGEs do not return to normal even if hyperglycemia is corrected and continue to accumulate over the lifetime of protein. The AGEs inhibitor. aminoguanidine(AG), is the only protein glycation inhibitor currently under development. its safety however is desirable. To find possible AGEs inhibitor in herbal medicines, bovine serum albumin was added to a mixture of sugars and some of processed. unprocessed herbal medicines or AG. Cyperi rhizoma was processed in four different methods according to chinese pharmacopoeia and traditional literatures. In comparision to the negative control with no inhibitor and positive control with AG. alcoholic extracts of these processed cyperi rhizoma proved to have more potent inhibitory activities than that of unprocessed cyperi rhizoma. These results revealed that some processed herbal medicines have a more potent in vitro inhibitory action on AGEs formation than AG. suggesting the possible candidate for diabetic nephropathy from the processed herbal medicines.