Fecal metabolic activities of herbal components to bioactive compounds.
The herbal components should be transformed to bioactive compounds by the intestinal bacteria and then expressed the pharmacological action of herbal medicines. Human fecal enzyme activities related to the metabolism of herbal components were measured. The metabolic activities of puerarin, poncirin, glycyrrhizin, ginsenoside Rb1 and ginsenoside Rb2 to their bioactive compounds were 3.5 +/- 1.18, 333.1 +/-183.64, 95.7 +/- 107.1, 28.6 +/- 10.32 and 20.8 +/- 13.3 micromol/ h/g, respectively. The profile of these metabolic activities of glycyrrhizin and ginsenosides were not changed even if herbal extracts, water extract of Glycyrrhizae Radix and Ginseng Radix, instead of the isolated compounds were used. All the enzyme activities tested were not different between male and female, and between ages. However, the difference of these enzyme activities in individuals was significant. These results suggest that the metabolic activity of herbal components to bioactive compounds may be a factor of constitutional classification, and could be available for constitutional classifications, if the constitutional herbal medicines were used.
Lee
Dai-Sik
DS
College of Oriental Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea.
Kim
Young-Suk
YS
Ko
Chang-Nam
CN
Cho
Ki-Ho
KH
Bae
Hyung-Sup
HS
Lee
Kyung-Sup
KS
Kim
Jung-Jin
JJ
Park
Eun-Kyung
EK
Kim
Dong-Hyun
DH
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001419:Bacteria / Q000378:metabolism*; D001711:Biotransformation; D005260:Female; D029001:Herbal Medicine; D006801:Humans; D007422:Intestines / Q000382:microbiology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010936:Plant Extracts / Q000378:metabolism*
D010936:Plant Extracts