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The life of a woman is ever so changing, especially when referring to the special days of the month or specific stages of life.

Angelica sinensis and coix seed helps during puberty

During a female’s puberty, the commonly occuring problem includes irregular menstruation and leucorrhoea due to hormonal changes. At this stage the uterus is only beginning to develop, which leads to unpredictable physiological functions of the body.

In addition, the teenage years are possibly overwhelmed by stress from school and homework, and changes in lifestyles or irregular living habits. These can all easily be causes leading to irregular menstruation, dysmenorrhea, increasing leucorrhoea and other related symptoms.

There are many names for angelica sinensis in traditional Chinese medicine, including radix angelicae sinensis or dong quai (當歸) denoting the dried root. It is commonly used to treat menstrual disorders, regulating blood flow. Researches have also found that angelica sinensis can promote estrogen secretion, reduce vascular resistance, increase blood volume and even nourish the skin.

Abnormal leucorrhoea are often a result of spleen disorder. The vaginal discharge commonly contains thick, odorless, white or yellowish substance. At the same time the body may feel weak with the face looking pale as white, without much apetite to eat. The active herbs that are used to recover the spleen includes the grains of coix seed (yi yi ren, 薏苡仁), and atractylodes macrocephala (bai zhu, 白術). There are also commerically available Chinese patent medicine that make use of these herbs including Shen Ling Bai Zhu Pian (參苓白術片) and wuji baifeng wan (烏雞白鳳丸).

After child-birth is suggested to use ejiao and motherwort

During childbirth, women often loses a lot blood from labor which causes blood deficiency. They might feel dizzy, feverish, constipated, bodily pain, limps twitching and other symptoms.

Ejiao (阿膠), which is a protein-rich glue substance made from the donkey’s rawhide. Women use this herb to recover from the loss of blood inconjunction with other herbs such as codonopsis pilosula (dang shen, 黨參), red date (紅棗), and the longan fruit (龍眼).

The symptoms of blood stasis syndrome includes stomachache, fever, and lochia. The motherwort (益母草) is a nourishing plant that can be used to relieve stress after pregnancy. The medical name is leonurus cardiaca. Other names include throw-wort, lion’s ear, and lion’s tail. There are also commercial Chinese patent medicine that is made solely from this herb.

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Herbal Medicine angelica, bai zhu, childbirth, dong quai, dysmenorrhea, ejiao, female, labor, leucorrhoea, lochia, longan, medicine, menstruation, mother, motherwort, pregnancy, puberty, spleen, stomachache, stress, tcm, uterus, woman

American researchers have conducted a long term study on the Chinese herb astragalus root (黃芪) and found that it contains a chemical substance called TAT2 that can effectively suppress the cell division of the aids virus.

The immune system undergoes a great deal of cell division as part of its function. When a virus enters the body, the killer CD8 T-cells reacts by dividing itself to create a replica to fight off the enemy. However with HIV, the T-cells cannot replicate itself forever to totally clean the HIV from the body immune system.

The traditional method of treating HIV used HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy), which includes a combination of three to four drugs taken to lower the level of HIV in the body and allow the immune system to recover from the damage. But HAART is not easily tolerated by some patients and the cost of the drugs are expensive.

The UCLA AIDS Institute recently published the results of a study that identified the chemical called TAT2 in plants such as astragalus used in traditional Chinese medicine therapy which has the effect of enhancing the replication ability for the T-cells. The tests also found that TAT2 produces substances called chemokines and cytokines that inhibits HIV replication.

The astragalus herb has the potential to act as a complimentary or even replacement therapy for HAART to become the primary method of curing HIV. In addition, the researchers pointed out that because TAT2 enhances cell replication, it has the added benefit of strengthening the immune system and defending against other viral infections associated with chronic diseases and aging.

Herbal Medicine antiretroviral, astragalus, chemkines, hiv, immunity, medicine, tat2, tcm, ucla, virus

From the past, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has always been based on repeat experiements and attempts to discover healing formulas instead of using scientific ways of research and analysis. A recent study shows that the in vitro antioxidant activity is related to the Chinese classification of yin (陰) and yang (陽).

In TCM, herbs are known to have four natures and five flavours. The four natures can be cold, hot, warm and cool, while the five flavours are pungent, sweet, sour, bitter and salty. Basically the natures are classfied by how the body reacts after the intake of the herb, and the flavours are simply the taste of the herb on the tongue.

It was known that the Huangdi Neijing (黃帝內經), also known as the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon, categorized the natures and flavours of Chinese herbs as pungent and sweet flavour grouping in yang, while the sour, bitter and salty flavours grouping in yin. It was possible to study and compare the therapeutic properties of different Chinese herbs based on the yin and yang compositions.

After examining 45 Chinese herbs and their category properties, the study found out that on average herbs that have the bitter flavour belonging to the yin character had a significant higher antioxidant property than herbs that have the pungent and/or sweet flavours belonging to the yang character.

The research gives some idea to finding and relating Chinese herbs to antioxidant actions, which means delaying the process of aging of the body system. By knowing how the natures and flavours react on our body we can better select the herbal medicines and food diet that best compliments our unique body system.

[eCAM 2008 5(4):429-434; doi:10.1093/ecam/nem054]

Medical News aging, antioxidant, bitter, medicine, salt, sweet, taste, tcm, therapeutic, yellow emperor, yin yang