Table 10.

The effect of decocting time on aconite toxicity.

Type	Detection indicator	Conclusion	Reference
Acute toxicity test in mice	Biochemical indicators, mortality, adverse reactions, etc.	The toxicity of aconite decoction for 60 minutes is relatively low, and the pharmacological activity is the strongest; when the decoction exceeds 105 minutes, the animals in each group behave normally without death	Kao and Zhang [104]
Clinical safety experiment	Nausea, vomiting, dizziness, salivation, and other adverse reactions	The normal dose decoction time should be controlled within 1-2 h; but if the dose is more than 200 g, an additional 1 h decoction time should be added	Liang et al. [105]
HPLC content determination	Aconitine, neoaconitine, hypoaconitine	Both the 0 min and 30 min water decoctions of aconite are toxic, but the 60 min toxicity is not significant, and it can basically be defined as nontoxic	Sun et al. [106]
HPLC and UV methods	Neoaconitine, hypoaconitine, aconitine, benzoyl neoaconitine, benzoyl hypoaconitine, benzoyl aconitine	After 0.5 h of decoction, the content of diester alkaloids basically disappeared. After 1 h of decoction, the content of monoester alkaloids and total alkaloids reached the maximum	Gong et al. [107]
HPLC content determination	Aconitine, hypoaconitine, neoaconitine, benzoyl neoaconitine, benzoyl hypoaconitine, benzoyl aconitine	After decoction of black sliced aconite for 3.5 hours, the content of monoester alkaloids gradually disappeared	Lin et al. [108]
HPLC content determination	13 kinds of alkaloids including aconitine, neoaconitine and hypoaconitine	After decoction of shengfu tablets for 2–4 hours, the content of diester alkaloids is already very low, which can ensure the safety of clinical medication	Zhang et al. [109]
HPLC content determination	Neoaconitine, hypoaconitine, aconitine, benzoyl neoaconitine, benzoyl hypoaconitine, benzoyl aconitine	The diester alkaloids in raw aconite are extremely unstable in water decoction. Hypoaconitine was detected within 0.5 h of decoction	Chen et al. [110]
HPLC content determination	Aconitum alkaloids	After decocting the aconite in water for 30 minutes, the content of aconitine and hypoaconitine became 10.5% and 41.9% of the peak value, respectively, and aconitine was completely undetectable; after the aconite microwave heating for 150s, the content of aconitine, neoaconitine, and hypoaconitine was 59.2%, 41.4%, and 86.6% of the peak value, respectively	Sui et al. [111]
HPLC and UV methods	Total alkaloids, ester alkaloids, polysaccharide components, diester alkaloid components	The best decocting time is within 1 hour	Yu et al. [112]