Herb-drug interactions between the medicinal mushrooms Lingzhi and Yunzhi and cytotoxic anticancer drugs: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Lingzhi and Yunzhi are medicinal mushrooms commonly used with cytotoxic chemotherapy in cancer patients in Asian countries. The current systematic review aims to identify potential pharmacokinetic or pharmacodynamic interactions from the existing literature to ensure their effective and safe combination usage in cancer patients. METHODS: A systematic search was conducted on nine major Chinese and English databases, including China Journal Net, Allied and Complementary Medicine Database, and Ovid MEDLINE®, etc., to identify clinical, animal, and in-vitro studies that evaluate the effect of combined use of Lingzhi or Yunzhi with cytotoxic drugs. The Jadad scale was used to assess the quality of clinical studies. RESULTS: This search identified 213 studies, including 77 clinical studies that reported on the combined use of cytotoxic drugs with Yunzhi (n = 56) or Lingzhi (n = 21). Majority of these clinical studies demonstrated modest methodological quality. In clinical practice, the most commonly used cytotoxic drugs with Lingzhi were cisplatin, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and paclitaxel, whereas Tegafur/uracil (UFT)/Tegafur, 5-FU, and mitomycin were the ones used more often with Yunzhi. Only two clinical pharmacokinetic studies were available showing no significant interactions between Polysaccharide K (PSK) and Tegafur. From the pharmacodynamic interactions perspective, combination uses of Yunzhi/Lingzhi with cytotoxic drugs in clinical practice could lead to improvement in survival (n = 31) and quality of life (n = 17), reduction in tumor lesions (n = 22), immune modulation (n = 38), and alleviation of chemotherapy-related side effects (n = 14) with no reported adverse effects. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that the clinical combination use of Lingzhi or Yunzhi with cytotoxic drugs could enhance the efficacy and ameliorate the adverse effects of cytotoxic drugs, leading to improved quality of life in cancer patients. More high quality clinical studies including pharmacokinetic herb-drug interactions studies are warranted to verify these observations and mechanisms involved. Based on the high quality clinical data, pharmacoepidemiology methods and bioinformatics or data mining could be adopt for further identification of clinical meaningful herb-drug interactions in cancer therapies.

Effect of black carbon on sorption and desorption of phosphorus onto sediments.

The sorption behavior of phosphorus onto sediment was investigated with the addition of BC derived from incomplete biomass combustion (PC). The sorption kinetic curves of phosphorus onto PC and sediment could be described by a two-compartment first order equation, and the sorption isotherms fit the Freundlich model well. With increasing amounts of PC added, the sorption capacity increased while the HI did not change much. The distribution of phosphorus forms showed that CaP (ACa-P plus DAP) constituted the highest fraction in the sediment samples. Throughout the sorption process, CaP and OP changed very little, but the Ex-P and FeP increased obviously, and the presence of PC made this increase more significantly. The high specific area and the presence of iron and aluminum, as well as the modification of the sediments surface properties, make the addition of PC be favorable for the sorption of phosphorus onto sediments.

The melanogenesis-inhibitory effect and the percutaneous formulation of ginsenoside Rb1.

Ginsenoside Rb1 (Rb1) is the most predominant ginsenoside isolated from the roots of ginseng (Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer). This compound is active in various human biological pathways that are involved in human collagen synthesis and inhibition of cell apoptosis. In this study, the skin-whitening effects of Rb1 were investigated in B16 melanoma cells. Our results showed that Rb1 inhibited melanogenesis in α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (α-MSH)-stimulated B16 cells in a dose-dependent manner, which collectively indicated that Rb1 may have skin-whitening effects and may be formulated into skin-whitening products for skin care. Accordingly, a ginsenoside collagen transdermal patch was developed as a vehicle to topically deliver Rb1 into pig skin. The percutaneous permeation, retention within skin, and release in vitro of Rb1 from seven transdermal patch formulas were studied. It was determined that the best formula for ginsenoside collagen transdermal patch is made of protein collagen hydrolysate powder (PCHP) 2.0% (w/w), methyl cellulose (MC) 0.5% (w/w), polyethyleneglycol 6000 (PEG6000) 0.5% (w/w), ginsenoside 0.036% (w/w), azone 0.4% (v/w), menthol 0.20% (w/w), and water.