Advances in Study of Icarrin for Anti-aging and Anti-depression： A Review / 中国实验方剂学杂志

ABSTRACT

Population aging has become a major feature of the demographic structure of today's society， and anti-aging is currently one of the major areas and hot spots of medical research. Kidney deficiency causes aging is the basic theory of aging in TCM， and kidney tonics have a long history of improving physiological functions and significantly alleviating aging-related diseases. However， the formulation of kidney tonics is complicated and the mechanism of action is still unclear. It is difficult to precisely analyze the targets of disease action and metabolic pathways. The kidney tonic herb Epimedium has the effect of tonifying the kidney and augmenting yang， and is not only used to treat diseases related to kidney deficiency and aging， but also has unique advantages in the treatment of mental and emotional diseases. Modern pharmacological studies have proved that Icarrin， a monomeric component of Epimedium， can produce a wide range of biological functions on cardiovascular system， exercise system， reproductive system， and nervous system， with strong antioxidant， free radical scavenging， and repair of mitochondrial DNA damage， which can anti-aging， anti-depression， and improve immunity， etc. In this paper， we searched databases such as CNKI， Pubmed， Wanfang database， Wipu Chinese journal service platform， and web of science to review the research on Icarrin， a monomeric ingredient that has both anti-aging and anti-depression effects， in order to provide a basis for further research on anti-depression and anti-aging in Chinese medicine.