Table 4.
Mechanisms of anti‐ageing/age‐related diseases via free radicals scavenging by TCM
| Active ingredients | Source | Experimental model | Efficacy | Mechanism | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Curcumin | Curcuma longa Linn. | Drosophila flies | Suppresses oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation, reduces accumulation of malondialdehyde (MDA), improves locomotor performance | Modulates a number of stress‐responsive genes, including the antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase | (Lee et al., 2010; Shen et al., 2013) |
| Echinacoside | Cistanche tubulosa Schenk Wight | D‐galactose‐induced aged mice | Repairs the damage induced by ROS, improves the memory ability, delays ageing process | Enhances the activities of GSH‐Px and SOD, reduces the content of MDA and the activity of MAO | (Muteliefu et al., 2004) |
| Isoliensinine | Nelumbo nucifera Gaertn | D‐galactose‐induced ageing mice | Markedly counteracts loss of body weight and liver index, significantly increases the antioxidative effect | Increases activities of SOD and GSH‐Px in surum and liver tissue, reduces content of MDA | (Liu et al., 2011a) |
| Huperzine a | Huperzia serrata Thunb. ex Murray Trev. | D‐galactose‐induced senile mice | Improves disorder of learning and memory and neuron protection | Significantly reduces the content of NO, the activity of NOS and the level of Ga2+ in brain cell plasma, increases the activities of GSH‐Px and SDH | (Lv et al., 2007) |
| Quercetin | Herba hyperici | C. elegans | Significantly improves the mean and maximum lifespan by 36 and 20% respectively with little effect on its reproductive capacity | Might improve the stress resistance | (Han et al., 2011) |
| Human RPE cells treated with oxidative stress mediated by H2O2 | Diminishes the decrease of mitochondrial function, reduces the activation of caspase‐3 from 1.9 to 1.4 fold, decreases the levels of caveolin‐1 mRNA and caveolin‐1 protein, attenuates the increase in β‐galactosidase–positive cells | Reduces mitochondrial dysfunction and cellular senescence | (Kook et al., 2008) | ||
| Polysaccharide | Arimillaria mellea Vahl ex Fr. Quel. | C. elegans | Significantly extends the lifespan without damage to the reproductive capacity, increases the expression of HSP‐16.2 and SOD‐3 | Maybe by increasing the capacity of stress resistance | (Chen et al., 2013) |
| Rosmarinic acid | Rosmarinus officinalis Linn. | D‐galactose‐induced ageing mice | Increases the activity of SOD and GSH‐Px in serum and brain, decreases the levels of MDA and triglyceride, extends hypoxia‐resistance time at normal pressure | Increases the activity of antioxidase, removes free radicals, reduces the production of lipid peroxidation | (Wang et al., 2009b) |
| Piceid | Polygonum cuspidatum | C. elegans model | Significantly increases the lifespan by 13% | Significantly enhances the swallowing rate, motility, intestinal lipofuscinosis and the reproductive capacity and remarkably decreases the lipofuscin | (Chen, 2012) |
| Green tea catechins | Gamellia sinensis O.Ktze | SAMP10 mice | Reduces carbonyl protein levels in the brain | Through decreasing carbonyl proteins and increasing GPx activity | (Kishido et al., 2007) |
| Mogroside | Siraitia grosvenorii Swingle C. Jeffrey ex Lu et Z. Y. Zhang | D‐galactose‐induced ageing mice and Drosophila melanogaster | Against ageing and prolongs the average life expectancy and maximum lifespan | Improves SOD activity and decreases MDA content | (Xiao et al., 2014) |
| Gypenosides | Gynostemma pentaphyllum Thunb. Makino | Human aged skin fibroblasts | Weakens oxidative stress, increases the ability of proliferation and therefore delays cells ageing | Increases the activity of SOD, CAT and GSH‐Px | (Cong et al., 2014) |
| Oxymatrine | Sophora flavescens Alt. | D‐galactose‐induced ageing mice | Improves the learning and memory ability | Defends against oxygen free radicals and reduces the lipid peroxidation | (Zi et al., 2012) |
| Total alkaloid | Corydalis yanhusuo W. T. Wang | D‐galactose‐induced ageing mice | Restores the ability of learning and memory and plays a role in anti‐ageing | Increases SOD, CAT and ChAT activity in the brain and reduces AChE activity | (Bai et al., 2008) |
| Resveratrol | Veratrum nigrum Linn. | D‐galactose‐induced ageing mice | Maintains the normal morphological structure of nerve cells, decreases oxidative stress responses and has protective effects on brain tissues | Significantly increases the number of nerve cells, the organ coefficients and activities of GSH‐Px, SOD and CAT, significantly decreases activity of MAO and content of MDA | (Cui et al., 2013) |
| D‐galactose‐induced myocardial cell senescence | Reduces the degree of D‐ galactose‐induced myocardial cell senescence | Reduces β‐ galactosidase and MDA levels, increases SOD activity and LC3II/LC3I level | (Guo et al., 2012) | ||
| Honokiol | Magnolia officinalis Rehd. et Wils. | D‐galactose‐induced ageing mice | Delays changes of quasi‐ageing | Enhances SOD, CAT and GSH‐Px activity, decreases MDA content | (Hao et al., 2009) |
| Chrysophanol | Rheum officinale Baill. | Scopolamine‐induced acquisition disturbance, sodium nitrite‐induced consolidation impairment, 30% ethanol‐induced retrieval deficit of memory and aluminium‐induced acute ageing in mice | Improves the impairments of memory acquisition and promotes the tolerance of rats | Increases plasma SOD activity | (Li et al., 2005) |
| Flavonoid | Oxytropis glabra Lam. DC. | D‐galactose‐induced ageing mice | Significantly prolongs the survival time under hypoxic condition and the swimming time at normal temperature and has obvious effects on anti‐senility | Significantly declines the content of MDA and LPO and increases the activity of SOD, GSH‐Px and CAT in serum and tissue | (Wang et al., 2013) |
| Galangin | Zingiber officinale Roscoe | D‐galactose‐induced senescent mice | Improves the cognitive function of aged mice | Attenuates the decreased activities of SOD, GPx and CAT, reduces MDA levels | (Fu et al., 2012) |
| Puerarin | Radix puerariae | D‐galactose‐induced ageing rats | Plays a part in anti‐ageing | Increases SOD and GSH‐Px activity in serum, decreases MDA and LPF levels | (Peng, 2009) |
| Sodium ferulate | Angelica sinensis Oliv. Diels/Ligusticum chuanxiong Hort. | D‐galactose‐induced ageing mice | Significantly promotes the activity of SOD in brain and serum, GSH‐Px in blood, remarkably inhibits the increase of MDA in serum and liver, MAO of brain, restrains the decrease of weight and the index of thymus and spleen | Increases the activity of antioxidase, removes the accumulation of metabolites in the body and increases the weight immune organ | (Zhu et al., 2004) |
| Carnosic acid | Rosmarinus officinalis Linn. | Human embryonic lung diploid fibroblasts 2BS cell line | Delays senescence of 2BS cells | Increases the cellular viability and the percentage of S distribution, dramatically reduces the SA‐β‐Gal positive rate, the percentage of G1/G0, the intracellular MDA level and p53 and p21 protein expression | (Tao et al., 2014) |
| Lotus seedpod procyanidins | Nelumbo nucifera Gaertn. | D‐galactose‐induced ageing mice | Has significant antioxidant effect | Significantly increases the activities of SOD and GSH‐Px in brain, remarkably decreases the content of MDA | (Chen et al., 2009) |
| Catalpol | Rehmannia glutinosa Gaert. Libosch. ex Fisch. et Mey. | D‐galactose‐induced sub‐acute senescent mice | Reverses the D‐galactose‐induced behavioural impairments | Increases the activities of SOD and GSH‐PX, decreases the MDA level | (Zhang and Liu, 2011) |
| Cycloastragenol | Astragalus propinquus Schischk. | D‐galactose‐induced ageing mice | Has a remarkable effect of anti‐decrepitude | May improve the activities of T‐SOD and T‐AOC, reduces the contents of MDA and HYP | (Cao et al., 2012) |
| Phycocyanin | Porphyra yezoensis veda | D‐Galactose‐induced mice models of subacute ageing | Has excellent anti‐ageing activity | Significantly increases SOD activity, thymus index and spleen index, as well as decreases MDA content | (Zhao and Tang, 2012) |
| Garlicin | Allium sativum Linn. | D‐galactose‐induced AD mice | Improves ability of spatial learning and memory | Reduces MDA content, increases SOD activity | (Hu et al., 2010) |
| Emodin | Rheum officinale Baill. | Hyperlipidaemia quail | Has significant lipid‐lowering effect and anti‐ageing effects | Lowers LPO content in serum and LF content in brain, increases SOD content and thymus weight as well as spleen weight | (Han et al., 2009) |
| Salvianolic acid B | Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge. | Glucocorticoid‐induced ageing skin of rats | Significantly increases epidermal thickness and content of elastic fibres, alleviates ageing‐like changes | Inhibits lysophosphatidylcholine‐induced increase of matrix metalloproteinase‐2 activity, scavenges free radicals, improves immune status and has anti‐lipid peroxidation | (Zhang et al., 2008a) |