Therapeutic uses of animal biles in traditional Chinese medicine:An ethnopharmacological,biophysical chemical and medicinal review

作     者：David Q-H Wang Martin C Carey 

作者机构：Gastroenterology DivisionDepartment of MedicineBrigham and Women’s HospitalHarvard Medical School and Harvard Digestive Diseases Center Liver Center and Gastroenterology DivisionDepartment of MedicineBeth Israel Deaconess Medical CenterHarvard Medical School and Harvard Digestive Diseases Center Division of Gastroenterology and HepatologyDepartment of Internal MedicineEdward Doisy Research CenterSaint Louis University School of Medicine 

出 版 物：《World Journal of Gastroenterology》 (世界胃肠病学杂志（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2014年第20卷第29期

页      面：9952-9975页

核心收录：

学科分类：100703[医学-生药学] 1007[医学-药学(可授医学、理学学位)] 10[医学] 

基　　金：Supported by Grants DK54012,DK73917,to Wang DQ-H DK36588,DK34854,and DK73687,to Carey MC all from the National Institutes of Health(US Public Health Service) 

主　　题：Bile acids Bile pigments Bilirubinates Liquid crystals Materia medica Mixed micelles Bear bile Ox gallstones Paleo-pharmacology Phospholipids 

摘      要：Forty-four different animal biles obtained from both invertebrates and vertebrates (including human bile) have been used for centuries for a host of maladies in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) beginning with dog, ox and common carp biles approximately in the Zhou dynasty (c. 1046-256 BCE). Overall, different animal biles were prescribed principally for the treatment of liver, biliary, skin (including burns), gynecological and heart diseases, as well as diseases of the eyes, ears, nose, mouth and throat. We present an informed opinion of the clinical efficacy of the medicinal uses of the different animal biles based on their presently known principal chemical components which are mostly steroidal detergent-like molecules and the membrane lipids such as unesterified cholesterol and mixed phosphatidylcholines and sometimes sphingomyelin, as well as containing lipopigments derived from heme principally bilirubin glucuronides. All of the available information on the ethnopharmacological uses of biles in TCM were collated from the rich collection of ancient Chinese books on materia medica held in libraries in China and United States and the composition of various animal biles was based on rigorous separatory and advanced chemical identification techniques published since the mid-20th century collected via library (Harvard’s Countway Library) and electronic searches (PubMed and Google Scholar). Our analysis of ethnomedical data and information on biliary chemistry shows that specific bile salts, as well as the common bile pigment bilirubin and its glucuronides plus the minor components of bile such as vitamins A, D, E, K, as well as melatonin (N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine) are salutary in improving liver function, dissolving gallstones, inhibiting bacterial and viral multiplication, promoting cardiac chronotropsim, as well as exhibiting anti-inflammatory, anti-pyretic, anti-oxidant, sedative, anti-convulsive, anti-allergic, anti-congestive, anti-diabe