• The Korea Journal of Herbology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.31-37
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• 2009

Objectives : The rapid progress seen in the Chinese medical and pharmaceutical industries since the mid.Ming Dynasty, and the resulting surge in demand for medicinal herbs led to the emergence of dedicated medicinal herb markets. A representative example was the medicinal herb market of Qizhou (today's Anguo) in Hebei Province. This paper examines various factors that contributed to the transformation and growth of Qizhou into and as a major medicinal herb market of China. Methods : Along with the examination of geographical factors, this study attempts to link the development of Qizhou as a center for medicinal herbs trade with legends related to the Medicine Lord Temple (Yao Wang Miao), a local shrine dedicated to the mythical Medicine Kings. Results : The main argument of this study is that although the emergence of Qizhou as China's largest marketplace for medicinal herbs was significantly helped by its proximity to Beijing, a huge source of demand, as well as its convenient location easily accessible from all parts of the country, and the large herbal production from surrounding areas, the single.most important contributing factor was the body of legends attributing to this city a magical healing energy. Conclusions : The example of Qizhou may also suggest that in pre.modern eras, legends related to supernatural healing power, associated to a city or town, were as important contributing factors to its emergence and growth as a dedicated medicinal herb market as its location or ease of access.

• CELLMED
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.11.1-11.5
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• 2015

Traditional East Asian Medicine (TEAM) prescriptions typically consist of several herbs based on the assumption that the herbs operate synergistically and/or cooperate on several related pathways simultaneously. This is a general concept that is widely accepted in TEAM, but it has not been tested systematically. To check this assumption statistically, we have text mined traditional Korean medicine text the Inje-ji(仁濟志, Collections of benevolent savings), a text that contains more than 5000 herb-cocktail prescriptions. We created herb-pairing network based on herb-herb pairing specificity and performed a systematic network analysis. Herbs were shown to be used selectively with other herbs and not randomly. Moreover, herb pairs were more specifically associated with symptoms than were single herbs. Single herbs and combinations of herbs specifically used for diabetes mellitus were successfully identified. As conclusion, herb-pairings in TEAM are not randomly constructed; instead, each herb was selectively used with other herbs. In terms of statistical significance, herb pairs were more specifically associated with symptoms than were single herbs alone. Collectively, these results suggest that it may be important to understand the interactions among multiple ingredients contained in herb pairs rather than trying to identify a single compound to resolve symptoms.

• Journal of Korean Medicine for Obesity Research
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.51-57
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• 2013

Objectives: This study was conducted to analyze anti-obesity effects of the main single medicinal herbs which have effects on obesity or metabolic syndrome. Methods: We selected the 8 main single medicinal herbs, and then 3 databases were searched using search words "obesity", and "each scientific name of selected 8 main herbs". Results and Conclusions: Only Ephedra sinica and Panax ginseng were analyzed through 3 methods, in vitro, animal studies and randomized controlled trial (RCT)s, Ephedra sinica was shown weight loss effects in RCTs, but Panax ginseng couldn't. Other 6 selected medicinal herbs were not verified in RCTs, all had anti-obesity effects in high fat fed mice (or rats) and the others except for Radix notoginseng and Radix puerariae had inhibitory effects on lipid accumulation in 3T3-L1 cells.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2013

Objectives : The aim of this research is to produce information by gathering up the data on the interaction between medicinal herbs which lie scattered in oriental medical books, and to provide people with easy access to the information by visualizing it. Methods : For this purpose, this study established the fundamental data by organizing the patterns of interaction into some kinds after selecting a part of Bonchogangmok(本草綱目) and extracting its text. In addition, in an effort to visualize the data, the study converted the data into 'net' file and visualized the interaction between medicinal herbs on Pajek. The visualization was done targeting a total of three patterns, such as 1 medicinal herb, 2 medicinal herbs, and 1 prescription. With the data on 'Chinese Lacquer(乾漆)' for 1 medicinal herb, data on 'Licorice(甘草)' and 'Chinese Lacquer(乾漆)' for 2 medicinal herbs, and data on 'Iijin-tang(二陳湯)' for prescription, the research conducted the analysis of the network using 'Kamada-Kawaii Algorithm' on Pajek. Results : As a result of the analysis, it was possible to see the meanings at a single glance as the scattered and fractional meanings were integrated with focus on medicinal herbs, but the increasing number of analyzed medicinal herbs tended to more and more complicate their relationships, thus, requiring additional work like filtering. Conclusions : Such results are fairly applicable in on-line database, and it is judged that if further research expands its scope to include systematic classification of medicinal herbs or cover other medical books than Bonchogangmok, it will create more objective, abundant information.

• Advances in Traditional Medicine
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2009

Medicinal herbs are significant source of synthetic and herbal drugs. In the commercial market, medicinal herbs are used as raw drugs, extracts or tinctures. Isolated active constituents are used for applied research. For the last few decades, phytochemistry (study of plants) has been making rapid progress and herbal products are becoming popular. According to Ayurveda, the ancient healing system of India, the classical texts of Ayurveda, Charaka Samhita and Sushruta Samhita were written around 1000 B.C. The Ayurvedic Materia Medica includes 600 medicinal plants along with therapeutics. Herbs like turmeric, fenugreek, ginger, garlic and holy basil are integral part of Ayurvedic formulations. The formulations incorporate single herb or more than two herbs (poly-herbal formulations). Medicinal herb contains multitude of chemical compounds like alkaloids, glycosides, saponins, resins, oleoresins, sesquiterpene, lactones and oils (essential and fixed). Today there is growing interest in chemical composition of plant based medicines. Several bioactive constituents have been isolated and studied for pharmacological activity. R. cordifolia is an important medicinal plant commonly used in the traditional and Ayurvedic system of medicine for treatment of different ailments. This review illustrates its major constituents, pharmacological actions substantiating the claims made about this plant in the traditional system of medicine and its clinical applications.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.200-205
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• 2011

In this study, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of ethanol extracts from medicinal herb mixtures were investigated in vitro. Contents of total polyphenols in ethanol extracts from Houttuynia cordata Thunb. (HC), Carthamus tinctorius L. (CT), and MIX-2 (Houttuynia cordata Thunb., Acanthopanax gracilistylus Smith, Carthamus tinctorius L., Kalopanax pictus) were 58.98, 60.79 and 57.74 mg/g respectively. Radical scavenging activities of the ethanol extracts were examined using ${\alpha},{\alpha}$-diphenyl-${\beta}$-picrylhydrazyl radicals and 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) assay. Anti-inflammatory effects of ethanol extracts from medicinal herbs composites were examined using 5-lipoxygenase (5-LO), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and nitric oxide (NO) inhibition assays. The ethanol extracts from medicinal herb mixtures showed higher 5-LO and COX-2 inhibition activities than those from single medicinal herbs. The ethanol extracts from medicinal herb mixtures also showed strong anti-inflammatory activity through inhibition of NO production.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2019.10a
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• pp.87-87
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• 2019

The consumption of herbal medicine and related products (herbal products) have increased in South Korea. At the same time the quality, safety, and efficacy of herbal products is being raised. Currently, the herbal products are standardized and controlled according to the requirements of the Korean Pharmacopoeia, the National Institute of Health and the Ministry of Public Health and Social Affairs. The validation of herbal products and their medicinal component is important, since many of these herbal products are composed of two or more medicinal plants. However, there are no tools to support the validation process. Interest in deep learning has exploded over the past decade, for herbal medicine using algorithms to achieve herb recognition, symptom related target prediction, and drug repositioning have been reported. In this study, individual images of four herbs (Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer, Atractylodes macrocephala Koidz, Poria cocos Wolf, Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fischer), actually sold in the market, were achieved. Certain image preprocessing steps such as noise reduction and resize were formatted. After the features are optimized, we applied GoogLeNet_Inception v4 model for herb image recognition. Experimental results show that our method achieved test accuracy of 95%. However, there are two limitations in the current study. Firstly, due to the relatively small data collection (100 images), the training loss is much lower than validation loss which possess overfitting problem. Secondly, herbal products are mostly in a mixture, the applied method cannot be reliable to detect a single herb from a mixture. Thus, further large data collection and improved object detection is needed for better classification.

• CELLMED
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.22.1-22.10
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• 2013

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in single herb or formula prescription has been used for thousands of years. Many of them possess antioxidant activity and the activity may contribute the therapeutic effect. This paper would review the relationship of traditional herbal medicine and antioxidant with particular reference to ginseng. This medicinal herb has been used worldwide with extensive tonic effect. The comet assay, a technique for DNA protecting and damaging investigation would be introduced and the application of comet assay on TCM would be discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.844-850
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• 2013

In this study, the optimal extraction conditions for three medicinal herbs as functional sources against inflammatory and arthritic diseases were developed. Traditional medicinal herbs were screened for their inhibition of hyaluronidase (HAse) activity and nitric oxide (NO) synthesis. For the screening of anti-inflammatory properties, ethanolic extracts of 53 species of traditional medicinal herb were examined. We confirmed that Astragalus membranaceus (A.R.), Schisandra chinensis (S.F.), and Platycodon grandiflorum (P.G.) inhibit NO production. For extraction from all three herbs simultaneously, an ethanol concentration of 95%, a 1:2:1 mixture ratio, and at 50 rpm mixing speed, for over 12 h and at $30^{\circ}C$ was the best condition for optimal extract yield and NO inhibition effects. HAse inhibition from the three herb extraction was three fold higher than single samples. The ethanol extracts were fractionated with various solvents (n-hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate, n-butanol, and water). The ethyl acetate-soluble fraction of the herb mixture showed the highest extract yield (13%) and NO inhibition effects (73%). In conclusion, this study provides experimental evidence that a mixture of P.G., A.R., and S.F. could be used as a source of antioxidant ingredients in the food industry.

• Proceedings of the Ginseng society Conference
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• 1984.09a
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• pp.141-144
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• 1984

With microorganism as a single cell model to investigate the cellular effect of total extract of ginseng powder, it was found that ginseng affects cellular respiration biphasically (Tso and Fung, 1980; Tso, 1981). As ginseng is recognized to be a tonic medicinal herb, this finding suggests a possible role of ginseng in altering cellular energy metabolism. Along this line, the same effect on mitochondrial oxygen consumption was studied. It was found that under a controlled pH condition, a significant stimulation of the mitochondrial respiration was observed. This stimulation was ginseng dose-dependent. However, when ginseng was applied at an above threshold concentration, an inhibitory effect was noted. This confirms the previous observation with single cell organism and suggests a universal regulation of energy metabolism effect that transcends cell origin.