"Yin-Yang and Five Elements" theories are the basis of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), which are normally used to explain the physiology and pathology of human body. Due to its complexity and lacking of modern theoretical basis, more and more question and opposition appear. Previous pharmacological studies suggested a possible relationship between herbal properties with its chemical components, antioxidant activity, mitochondrial adenosine triphosphate generation and body temperature regulation. To reach possible parameters in clarifying the "Yin-Yang" of TCM, different approaches have been conducted.

Here, 15 commonly used herbs, attributed to spleen-meridian in TCM theory, were selected. According to the pharmacological activity, these herbs could be classified into four gro...[ Read more ]

"Yin-Yang and Five Elements" theories are the basis of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), which are normally used to explain the physiology and pathology of human body. Due to its complexity and lacking of modern theoretical basis, more and more question and opposition appear. Previous pharmacological studies suggested a possible relationship between herbal properties with its chemical components, antioxidant activity, mitochondrial adenosine triphosphate generation and body temperature regulation. To reach possible parameters in clarifying the "Yin-Yang" of TCM, different approaches have been conducted.

Here, 15 commonly used herbs, attributed to spleen-meridian in TCM theory, were selected. According to the pharmacological activity, these herbs could be classified into four groups, i.e. nourishing blood, promoting digestion, checking diarrhea and calming the heart. According to their natural properties, they could be further classified as Yin-stimulating, Yang-stimulating and neutral herbs. The water extracts, 50% ethanol extracts and 90% ethanol extracts of the 15 herbs were standardized and prepared. Principle component analysis (PCA) analysis of the full spectrum of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and liquid chromatograph-mass spectrometer (LC-MS) of herbal extracts were conducted. The results revealed that the LC-MS profile showed strong correlation with the "Yin-Yang and Five Elements" classification criterion, indicating the importance of trace elements in affecting the efficacy of TCM.

Additionally, previous research suggested the potential connection between "Yin-Yang" properties with antioxidant activity due to their high similarities. Here, a comprehensive antioxidant profile of selected herbs was established with a series of chemical-based and cell-based assays. Moreover, by adopting PCA analysis method, the low correlation between antioxidant activity and herbal properties in selected spleen-meridian herbs was revealed.

In regarding of physiological concepts of "cold" and "hot" in TCM, the effects of selected herbs to energy metabolism and body temperature were also studied. Here, an extracellular flux analyzer was adopted to determine the effects of herbal extracts with different properties to mitochondrial respiration in cultured live cardiomyocytes in real-time. The results showed that the "Yin-Yang" nature of herbs played great impacts on energy metabolism. To be specific, two typical Yang-stimulating herbs, i.e. Ginseng Radix and Astragali Radix, could provide obvious tonic effects to cardiomyocytes in exposing to oxidation damage, while two typical Yin-stimulating herbs, i.e. Nelumbinis Semen and Coicis Semen showed slight decreasing effects to mitochondrial bioenergetics. Moreover, their effects to the regulation of body temperature were further studied with yeast-induced pyrexia models. The results suggested that Yang-stimulating herbs, especially Astragali Radix, could maintain the high temperature, as induced by yeast, while Yin-stimulating herbs showed obvious cooling effects. Moreover, present results suggested that the difference in temperature adjustment might be due to their different effects to thermoregulatory factors, i.e. cAMP, PGE₂ and AVP. These factors could further influence the contents of energy metabolites.

In summary, the correlation between herbal properties with chemical composition, antioxidant activity, energy metabolism and temperature regulation were studied. The results showed that the property of TCM could be closely related with their chemical composition, and which played great impacts on energy metabolism and temperature adjustment. In contrast, these properties did not correlate with antioxidant activity.