🌿 Folk Prescriptions

Research led by Associate Researcher Zheng Gaoli from Zhejiang Provincial Academy of Medical Sciences, funded by the Zhejiang Provincial Health Department Youth Science and Technology Talent Fund and Zhejiang Natural Science Foundation, completed over three years the study titled "Effects and Mechanisms of Gegen Isoflavones in Preventing and Treating Osteoporosis." This research first proposed and confirmed that gengen isoflavones effectively treat osteoporosis.
Traditional Chinese medicine treats osteoporosis primarily by tonifying the kidneys. Clinically, yang-tonifying and kidney-strengthening herbs are commonly used. Gegen is traditionally used as a pungent-cool herb to treat headache, neck stiffness, irritability, and thirst. There is no prior literature documenting its use for osteoporosis. Since September 1998, Zheng Gaoli’s team, inspired by foreign reports indicating certain isoflavones selectively bind to different estrogen receptor subtypes, theoretically speculated that gengen isoflavones might prevent and treat primary osteoporosis. Experimental evidence demonstrated that gengen isoflavones regulate bone metabolism through skeletal density, elemental content, mechanical properties, and tissue structure. Furthermore, studies on gengen isoflavones and gengen glycoside promoting proliferation and differentiation of rat osteoblasts revealed the cellular mechanism underlying their anti-osteoporotic effects.
This breakthrough holds significant importance for developing anti-osteoporosis drugs utilizing the high isoflavone content in gengen.