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Dan Shen, also known as Zi Dan Shen (Purple Salvia).
[Properties and Efficacy]
Bitter in taste, cool in nature. Efficacy: invigorates blood circulation and dispels stasis, nourishes blood and calms the spirit.
[Traditional Applications]
Indicated for irregular menstruation, difficult menstruation, postpartum stasis abdominal pain; stabbing pain in the heart and abdomen; masses and accumulations; numbness and pain in limbs; warm diseases with heat; skin rashes; heat toxin sores; palpitations, insomnia, and other symptoms.
This herb is used in Dan Shen Yin (Dan Shen, Sha Ren, Tan Xiang) to treat qi stagnation and blood stasis, and gastric pain.
In the treatment of warm diseases with heat entering the nutritive level, Dan Shen is also used in Qing Ying Tang for high fever and rashes.
[Main Components]
Dan Shen mainly contains lipid-soluble components such as Dan Shen ketones and water-soluble components like Dan Shen acids.
1. Lipid-soluble components include Dan Shen ketone, Dihydro Dan Shen ketone I, Dan Shen ketone II A, Dan Shen new ketone, Dan Shen new ketone II, Dehydro Dan Shen ketone, Hydroxy Dan Shen ketone, Hydroxy Dan Shen ketone II A, Iso Dan Shen ketone, Hidden Dan Shen ketone, Dan Shen new quinone A, B, C, D, Sub-methyl Dan Shen quinone, Dan Shen acid methyl ketone, Dan Shen lactone, and various Dan Shen compounds.
2. Water-soluble components include Dan Shen acid (also known as Dan Shen acid methyl), Dan Shen acid ethyl, Dan Shen acid propyl, Protocatechuic aldehyde, Protocatechuic acid, Rosmarinic acid, Dan Shen phenol, Dan Shen acid A, Dan Shen acid B, Dan Shen acid C, Dan Shen aldehyde, Isoferulic acid, etc.
3. Other components include β-sitosterol, Vitamin E, Succinic acid, Butanedioic acid, Scutellarin, and Carotenoid glycosides.
[Pharmacological Effects]
(1) Effects on the Cardiovascular System
1. Coronary dilation: Dan Shen injection can cause dilation of the coronary arteries in isolated rabbit hearts, increasing blood flow. Dan Shen phenol, Dan Shen ketone II A, and Protocatechuic aldehyde all have coronary dilation effects, with Dan Shen phenol being the strongest, even more potent than Pan Shen Ding.
2. Accelerating microcirculation: Dan Shen injection can expand the diameter of micro-arteries, improving blood flow speed and volume. It can open liver sinusoids, activate liver microcirculation, and accelerate renal microcirculation, increasing myocardial perfusion.
3. Protecting ischemic myocardium: Dan Shen has protective effects on ischemic myocardium and reperfusion injury; in experimental acute myocardial infarction, Dan Shen, Zi Dan Shen, Dan Shen phenol, and Dan Shen ketone II A can significantly reduce the infarct area, with Zi Dan Shen showing the best efficacy; it also accelerates recovery from myocardial ischemia and damage, significantly alleviating degeneration, necrosis, stasis, and thrombosis in myocardial capillary endothelium, promoting regeneration of myocardial cells in the infarct area.
Dan Shen’s protective effects on ischemic myocardium are multifaceted, increasing coronary blood flow, improving microcirculation, promoting collateral circulation, inhibiting platelet aggregation, enhancing fibrinolysis, reducing blood viscosity, and redistributing blood flow favorably to the heart, improving hypoxia tolerance, and preventing lipid peroxidation while scavenging free radicals.
Further studies suggest that Dan Shen’s protective effects on ischemic myocardium are related to its inhibition of the overactivity of phosphoinositide signaling systems in ischemic myocardium. Dan Shen ketone II A acts as a calcium antagonist. Dan Shen can reduce the degradation of adenosine in ischemic myocardium, significantly increasing the activity of succinate dehydrogenase in myocardial tissue and mitochondria, similar to the action of coenzyme Q10.
4. Anti-shock: Compound Dan Shen injection can significantly elevate arterial blood pressure, increase cardiac output and stroke volume, reduce peripheral resistance, and improve survival rates in rabbits with hemorrhagic shock.
5. Antihypertensive: Dan Shen decoction can lower blood pressure in anesthetized rabbits and dogs. In vivo, it can significantly activate calcium influx in normal animal vascular smooth muscle and inhibit calcium influx in hypertensive rat vascular smooth muscle, exhibiting a bidirectional regulatory effect.
6. Improving cardiac function: Dan Shen decoction can slow the heart rate in anesthetized dogs, significantly reducing the incidence of ventricular fibrillation induced by isoproterenol or preventing its occurrence. It has a notable effect on improving cardiac function in patients with coronary heart disease.
7. Lipid-lowering and anti-atherosclerosis: Dan Shen can significantly lower serum cholesterol, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein, low-density lipoprotein, and aortic wall cholesterol levels in rabbits; it reduces the area of atherosclerotic lesions and lowers aortic intima permeability. Dan Shen phenol can significantly inhibit endogenous cholesterol synthesis, prevent lipoprotein oxidation, and suppress malondialdehyde production, protecting endothelial cells and preventing the occurrence and development of atherosclerosis.
(2) Protective effects against liver damage
1. Hepatoprotective and enzyme-lowering: In rabbits with acute CCl4-induced hepatitis, Dan Shen can significantly reduce inflammatory necrosis of liver cells, lower transaminases and intrahepatic triglycerides. It promotes blood flow in liver sinusoids, improves liver microcirculation and nutrient supply, and enhances DNA and protein synthesis in liver cells, promoting their regeneration and restoring liver protein metabolic function.
2. Enhancing liver immune function: Dan Shen can stimulate an increase in plasma fibrinogen levels in rats, thereby enhancing the phagocytic function of the reticuloendothelial system and the activity of opsonins, preventing immune damage to the liver.
3. Reducing portal hypertension: Dan Shen can dilate the capillary network of the portal vein system in dogs, thereby lowering portal vein pressure, which is beneficial for treating portal hypertension due to liver cirrhosis.
(3) Protective effects against lung damage
1. Anti-pulmonary fibrosis: Dan Shen injection can significantly reduce the content of hydroxyproline in the lungs, markedly alleviating pulmonary fibrosis lesions. Electron microscopy shows that the number of collagen-forming cells, inflammatory cell infiltration, collagen fibers, and elastic fibers in the lung treatment group are significantly reduced, demonstrating significant preventive and therapeutic effects on pneumonia and pulmonary fibrosis.
Dan Shen injection can inhibit the collagen synthesis rate of fibroblasts cultured in vitro and suppress the proliferation and growth of fibroblasts.
2. Preventing and treating emphysema: Dan Shen can significantly inhibit the activity of elastase in vivo, protecting elastic fibers from destruction by elastase, thus preventing elastase-induced emphysema in experimental rats.
3. Alleviating lung tissue lesions: Dan Shen can reduce various lesions in lung tissue caused by oleic acid, such as congestion, hemorrhage, thrombosis, consolidation, and infarction, and can alleviate and prevent the occurrence of respiratory distress syndrome.
4. Reducing pulmonary arterial hypertension: Dan Shen injection can counteract hypoxic pulmonary arterial pressure elevation in rabbits, reduce pulmonary vascular resistance, improve arterial blood oxygen partial pressure in hypoxic animals, and lessen the degree of ST segment depression on ECG caused by severe hypoxia. Dan Shen can dilate the pulmonary artery diameter in rat alveoli, reducing hypoxic damage to endothelial cells.
(4) Renal protective effects
1. Reducing renal damage: Dan Shen protects the proximal tubular epithelium after renal ischemia in experimental rabbits, reducing necrosis of proximal tubular epithelial cells, alleviating ischemic damage to renal microvilli and mitochondria, and restoring them to normal.
2. Improving renal function: Dan Shen injection can reduce total urinary protein in experimental nephropathy rats, significantly alleviating pathological changes in renal vacuoles. In early renal damage in rats, Dan Shen can lower serum creatinine and increase creatinine clearance rate. In experimental renal insufficiency, Dan Shen extract can increase glomerular filtration rate and renal blood flow, with varying degrees of increase in urine volume, urea, creatinine, potassium, sodium, calcium, and phosphorus excretion.
3. Enhancing peritoneal dialysis function: Adding Dan Shen to peritoneal dialysis fluid can dilate mesenteric arterioles and venules in rabbits, accelerating blood flow and improving peritoneal dialysis efficacy, enhancing the clearance rates of blood creatinine, urea nitrogen, and uric acid.
(5) Enhancing immune response, anti-allergic and anti-inflammatory effects
1. Enhancing immunity: Dan Shen can improve the phagocytic function of macrophages in mice, increase lymphocyte transformation rates in rats, and promote humoral immunity.
2. Anti-allergic: Dan Shen has a significant inhibitory effect on mast cell degranulation in the peritoneum and a strong antagonistic effect on SRS-A induced contraction of guinea pig isolated ileum, significantly prolonging the latency period of drug-induced asthma in guinea pigs and showing a notable antispasmodic effect on isolated guinea pig tracheal strips.
3. Anti-inflammatory: Dan Shen ketone has significant inhibitory effects on both the first phase model of inflammation (egg white-induced joint swelling, exudative formaldehyde peritonitis) and the second phase model (subacute formaldehyde arthritis, etc.).
(6) Anticoagulant and anti-lytic effects
1. Anticoagulant: Various components of Dan Shen exhibit anticoagulant effects, with Dan Shen ketone being the most potent. Various derivatives of Dan Shen ketone significantly inhibit platelet aggregation in rabbits, accelerate the disaggregation of rabbit platelets, and inhibit various platelet functions such as adhesion, aggregation, and release reactions, thus exerting anticoagulant effects.
2. Anti-hemolytic: Dan Shen can enhance the stability of red blood cell membranes, and Dan Shen ketone II A can protect against hemolysis induced by low pH and saponin in rabbit red blood cells and immune hemolysis in sheep red blood cells.
(7) Anti-aging and enhancing hypoxia tolerance
1. Anti-lipid peroxidation (LPO): Seven phenolic components of Dan Shen can significantly inhibit experimental liver microsomal lipid peroxidation, markedly reducing malondialdehyde production. The potency order is Dan Shen acid A > Dan Shen acid B > Protocatechuic acid > Dan Shen phenol > Caffeic acid > Rosmarinic acid.
Dan Shen can effectively scavenge superoxide anions and has a strong inhibitory effect on induced lipid peroxidation in rat brain, liver, and kidney microsomes, being a thousand times more effective than Vitamin E.
2. Enhancing SOD activity: Dan Shen injection can significantly increase SOD activity in the heart, liver, kidney, and red blood cells of aged mice, significantly lowering LPO levels in serum, heart, liver, and kidney, slightly stronger than Vitamin E.
3. Enhancing hypoxia tolerance: Dan Shen injection can significantly increase ATP levels in the myocardium and brain of mice, enhancing hypoxia tolerance and improving cardiac and cerebral function. Dan Shen can prevent hypoxic neuronal damage and edema caused by cerebral ischemia in rats, with Dan Shen ketone II B, Dan Shen phenol, and Zi Dan Shen all enhancing animals’ hypoxia tolerance.
Scavenging oxygen free radicals, preventing or alleviating lipid peroxidation, and enhancing hypoxia tolerance are among the mechanisms by which Dan Shen prevents and treats cardiovascular diseases, liver diseases, and kidney diseases.
(8) Antitumor effects and promoting cancer metastasis
Dan Shen has cytotoxic effects on S180 cancer cells, inhibiting DNA synthesis and acting on the S phase of cancer cell proliferation, which is the DNA doubling phase.
Dan Shen can significantly enhance the inhibitory effects of camptothecin and cyclophosphamide on Ehrlich ascites carcinoma and S180. Dan Shen can improve blood circulation, increase local blood flow, and when used in conjunction with chemotherapy drugs, facilitates the penetration of anticancer drugs into tumors, maximizing their anticancer effects.
On the other hand, Dan Shen and compound Dan Shen promote the hematogenous dissemination of mouse liver cancer cells and rat Walker-256 cells to the lungs, also promoting spontaneous metastasis of Lewis lung cancer in mice.
(9) Other effects
1. Antipyretic: Dan Shen has a significant antipyretic effect on rabbits with fever.
2. Estrogenic activity: Dan Shen ketone has mild estrogenic activity and anti-androgen effects. Dan Shen can increase estradiol levels in juvenile rats, leading to increased uterine weight and changes in prostaglandin levels in the ovaries.
3. Anti-gastric ulcer: Water-soluble components of Dan Shen have protective effects on gastric mucosa, significantly promoting healing in chronic and stress-induced gastric ulcers.
4. Promoting wound and fracture healing: Dan Shen promotes healing in skin incisions in rabbits and also promotes fracture healing in rats.
5. Anti-pancreatitis: Dan Shen injection can significantly reduce the degree of bleeding and necrosis in experimental pancreatitis in rats.
6. Protecting against brain injury: Dan Shen can reduce neuronal damage in the hippocampal region after brain contusion in rats.
7. Sedative and analgesic effects: Dan Shen injection can reduce spontaneous activity in mice, causing them to lower their heads, lie down, and close their eyes, exhibiting sedative effects; it also has central analgesic effects.
8. Dan Shen ketone derivatives have broad-spectrum antibacterial effects.
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