Feng Yibin, Siu Kayu, Wang Ning, Ng Kwan-Ming, Tsao Sai-Wah, Nagamatsu Tadashi, Tong Yao
School of Chinese Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, 10 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, PR China.
J Ethnobiol Ethnomed. 2009 Jan 12;5:2. doi: 10.1186/1746-4269-5-2.
Bear bile has been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for thousands of years. Modern investigations showed that it has a wide range of pharmacological actions with little toxicological side effect and the pure compounds have been used for curing hepatic and biliary disorders for decades. However, extensive consumption of bear bile made bears endangered species. In the 1980's, bear farming was established in China to extract bear bile from living bears with "Free-dripping Fistula Technique". Bear farming is extremely inhumane and many bears died of illness such as chronic infections and liver cancer. Efforts are now given by non-governmental organizations, mass media and Chinese government to end bear farming ultimately. At the same time, systematic research has to be done to find an alternative for bear bile. In this review, we focused on the literature, laboratory and clinical results related to bear bile and its substitutes or alternative in English and Chinese databases. We examined the substitutes or alternative of bear bile from three aspects: pure compounds derived from bear bile, biles from other animals and herbs from TCM. We then discussed the strategy for stopping the trading of bear bile and issues of bear bile related to potential alternative candidates, existing problems in alternative research and work to be done in the future.
熊胆在传统中医中已使用了数千年。现代研究表明,熊胆具有广泛的药理作用,毒理学副作用较小,其纯化合物已用于治疗肝胆疾病数十年。然而,熊胆的大量消费使熊成为濒危物种。20世纪80年代,中国建立了养熊场,采用“引流熊胆技术”从活熊身上提取熊胆。养熊极其不人道,许多熊死于慢性感染和肝癌等疾病。目前,非政府组织、大众媒体和中国政府正在努力最终取缔养熊场。与此同时,必须进行系统研究以找到熊胆的替代品。在本综述中,我们重点关注了英文和中文数据库中与熊胆及其替代品或替代物相关的文献、实验室和临床结果。我们从三个方面研究了熊胆的替代品或替代物:熊胆衍生的纯化合物、其他动物的胆汁和中药草药。然后,我们讨论了停止熊胆交易的策略以及与潜在替代候选物相关的熊胆问题、替代研究中存在的问题以及未来有待开展的工作。