The Contents and Properties of Pharmacological Studies on Multi-component Chinese Medicine / 中国中医药信息杂志

ABSTRACT

“Multi-component Chinese medicine” was derived from effective clinical prescriptions, which is similar to natural medicines, and its form is similar to the fixed-dose compounds. The adaptable indications mainly cast chronic, intractable, and complex diseases. Its research targets of pharmacology mostly are diseases, symptoms or pathological process. Vivo and vitro experiments can be used in its researches. Its dose-effect relationship mostly shows non-linear relationship, and three elements (dose, efficacy and syndrome) are involved. However, the comprehensive evaluation method is still in the exploratory stag. In the safety evaluation, there were few general pharmacological researches, and the basis of toxicity and the relationship between amount and toxicity need further study. In combined optimization aspect, including identification of components and component ratio optimization, many methods have been developed, but it still needs to be developed in theory and systemic integration. Pharmacological mechanism researches focus on the multi-component, multi-target, multi-pathway, and multi-pharmacodynamics aspects, combined with new ideas and new technologies, such as systems biology, network pharmacology, etc. But as multi-component medicine, it should also be studied about the correspondence and network relationships of component and target, with a purpose to explain the contribution of each component in overall mechanism.