• Journal of Life Science
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• v.31 no.12
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• pp.1128-1141
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• 2021

'Angelica' is one of the most traditionally consumed medicinal herbs around Northeast Asia including Korea for treatments of various diseases or health care purposes like hematopoiesis, blood circulation for women, sedative, analgesic, and a tonic medicine etc. Angelica gigas Nakai, a Korean native species of Angelica, is clearly different from the others in containing a high concentration of active ingredients like pyranocoumarines including decursin, decursinol, and decursinol angelate. These compounds have various kinds of positive effects such as anti-tumor activity including the precaution of neutropenia occurred during anticancer drug administration, improvements of metabolic disorders, menstrual irregularity, impairment of renal function, respiration improvement, cognition-enhancement, anti-inflammatory effect, anti-oxidative effect, enhancing fertility and so forth. Thus it implies incredible potentialities in future development for foods and drugs. However, certain purity-related qualities and/or overdose in food products can cause side effects like toxicities; therefore, their safety profiles should also be considered. This review focuses on the positive and negative effects of three pyranocoumarines in Angelica gigas Nakai and some possibilities and considerations for future food and drug products development.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.16 no.2 s.30
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• pp.134-148
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• 1995

Dysmenorrhea is probably the most common of all Gynecologic disorders. In the oriental medicine the etiology of Dysmenorrhea is very various, but its mechanism is just that the block of the flow makes the pain. So its treatment is removing the pain by promoting menstrual flow, promoting the flow of qi and by warming channel and activating blood flow. In the various treatments of dysmenorrhea, the method of applying drug at the acupoints which could be combined with feeding herb-medicine by oral was studied. The results obtained here were as follows; 1. In the treatments of dysmenorrhea, the method of applying drug at the acupoints was mainly applied to the type dued to stagnancy of qi and blood stasis, menorrhalgia dued to to cold and dampness, and primary dysmenorrhea. 2. The acupoint used in this treatment was Shin-gwol$(CV_8)$, the umbilicus. 3. The drugs used in this treatment were almost same as oral herb-medicine mainly to activate the blood flow and remove the blood stasis and to promote the flow of qi by warming the channel and remove the pain. 4. The duration of the treatment is, from 3 days before menstration till its period or a few days after it., usually concentrated on fore-postmenstration. 5. The effect of this treatment was reported as excellent. It is more effective to the type of stagnancy of qi and blood stasis, cold and dampness than dued to deficiency of both qi and blood, and dued to the impaired liver-kidney essence. 6. The method of applying drug at the acupoint was as an external treatment, easy, economical, and had no pain and side effect. 7. In the treatments of dysmenorrhea, the method of applying drug at the acupoint could be used as emergency treatment and symptomatic treatment in fore-postmenstration.