Issue 46, 2017

Recent advances in pharmacokinetics approach for herbal medicine

Abstract

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), an indispensable part of herbal medicine, has been used for treating many diseases and/or symptoms for thousands of years. As we know, the main active components of TCM can account for its therapeutic effects. However, rational use of TCM faces a series of obstacles due to a large diversity of species and inaccurate knowledge of the active components. In recent years, more and more applications of new technologies or methodologies for investigating the active components of TCM have provided us with much additional information on active substances. Pharmacokinetics is an effective tool which can be used to investigate the many components of TCM. A pharmacokinetics approach reveals the dynamic processes of active components in vivo, including their absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion which offer guidance for clinical rational uses of TCM. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to review the current status of TCM, application of pharmacokinetics in investigating TCM, and emerging trends.

Graphical abstract: Recent advances in pharmacokinetics approach for herbal medicine

Article information

Article type
Review Article
Submitted
25 feb. 2017
Accepted
19 may. 2017
First published
01 jun. 2017
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

RSC Adv., 2017,7, 28876-28888

Recent advances in pharmacokinetics approach for herbal medicine

K. Zhang, G. Yan, A. Zhang, H. Sun and X. Wang, RSC Adv., 2017, 7, 28876 DOI: 10.1039/C7RA02369C

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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