The effects of Sa-Mul-Tang (Si-Wu-Tang), a Traditional Chinese Medicine, on Phenylhydrazine-induced Anemic Rats

Sa-Mul-Tang (Si-Wu-Tang, SMT), a kind of Chinese medicine, has been used for the hemato-deficient disease for hundreds of years. In this work, investigations on the anti-anemic activity of an aqueous extract of SMT were undertaken in order to find the pharmacological basis for the ethnomedical use of the formulation. Three kinds of Angelicase species, such as Angelica sinensis, Angelica acutiloba, and Angelica gigas, were used for preparing the water extracts of SMT. Anemic model rats were induced by the treatment of phenylhydrazine (40 mg/kg/day, i.p.) for 4 days. After the treatment of phenylhydrazine, rats were divided into several groups for their different treatment of three kinds of SMT. Red blood cell (RBC), hemoglobin (Hg), and hematocrit (Hct) were determined on the day 0, 3, 6, 10, 14 after the treatment of SMTs and erythrocytes deformabilities were also determined at the end of experiments. Oral administration of SMT (1g/kg/day) for 14 days did not ameliorate drug-induced anemic states evaluated by RBC counts, Hg contents, and Hct values. However, the erythrocyte deformabilities were improved in phenylhydrazine-treated group by the administragest that SMTs (p<0.05). Especially, these effects were high in the Angelica acutiloba group. These results suggest that SMTs have an ameliorative effect on blood rheology related to the blood stasis syndrome in oriental diagnostics not on the blood deficient states related to the anemic syndrome.