Extractum Astragali (Astragalus) 10/10cc bottles, 3.3 fl oz: C
This legendary medicinal plant is a perennial with long, fibrous roots, native to North China and Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Liaoning, and Jilin provinces. This root has been used since ancient times as a tonic, and has been the subject of intensive research in modern China. Perhaps best known today for its immune regulating effects, astragalus is also utilized in traditional Chinese medicine to benefit digestion, promote circulation, alleviate edema, and reduce excessive sweating. Among its active constituents are the flavonoids that give its flowers and roots their yellow color. Astragalus has a mild sweet taste, making it suitable for convenient ingestion in liquid form, such as the vials of astragalus extract produced in Jilin. This province is famous for its tonic herbs, including ginseng. The extract in vials is produced at the Changchung Chinese Medicines Factory, in the capital city of Changchung ('Spring City'). The astragalus extract is provided in vials of 10 cc each, to be consumed 1 bottle each time, twice per day. The vials contain a small amount of honey as flavoring and preservative and a small amount of alcohol that is residual from the extraction process using alcohol and water. Practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine consider astragalus a true tonic that can strengthen debilitated patients and increase resistance to disease in general. In contemporary Chinese medicine, it is also a chief component of zheng fu therapy, a combination herbal treatment designed to restore immune function in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Astragalus is a complex combination of polysaccharides, triterpene glycosides, flavonoids, amino acids, and trace minerals Astragalus polysaccharides have been shown to stimulate pituitary-adrenal cortical activity and restore depleted red blood cell formation in bone marrow. Again, confirming traditional Chinese medicine, Astragalus has been shown to stimulate the body's natural production of interferon. Astragalus is now prescribed, in both the East and the West, for immuno-compromised people, or people who easily 'catch' illnesses. The decoction is safe to use repeatedly on a daily basis. Research in China has demonstrated increased survival in patients receiving both herbal and Western therapies, as well as protection from the immunosuppressive effects of the latter. Studies in the West confirm that astragalus enhances immune function by increasing activity of several kinds of white blood cells and boosting production of antibodies and interferon, the body's own antiviral agent. Numerous scientific studies have confirmed the medicinal value of astragalus. Immunopharmacology (1990;20) and Mutation Research (1992) found enhancement response by Astragalus extract, Journal of Ethnopharmacology (1990) reported a hepatoprotective effect and indicated that ethanol extract of Astragalus alleviates liver injury, Archivos del Instituto de Cardiologia de Mexico (199