Kampo Research Laboratories, Kracie Pharma Ltd, Takaoka, Japan.
Aging Male. 2013 Mar;16(1):17-21. doi: 10.3109/13685538.2012.755507. Epub 2013 Jan 22.
The term "late-onset hypogonadism (LOH)" is recommended to express the symptoms in middle-aged males with decreased testosterone. Although androgen replacement therapy (ART) might be an effective way to manage LOH, the risk of testosterone supplementation in elderly men is still concerned. On the other hand, to avoid adverse effects of ART, Kampo medicine (traditional Chinese-Japanese medicine) is often a first choice to treat LOH in Japan. However, their pharmacological studies are few. In this study, castrated mice was used as an LOH animal model for examining the pharmacological effects of a Kampo formula, saikokaryukotsuboreito (shortly SKRBT) on serum testosterone levels and seminal vesicles weights. Furthermore, an attempt to elucidate its pharmacological mechanism, inhibition of SKRBT and its components against aromatase were also examined with the enzyme-based assay. As a result, SKRBT improved significantly both the decline of serum testosterone levels and decrease of seminal vesicles weight of castrated mice at a dose of 125 mg/kg with a non dose-dependent manner. SKRBT and two components Scutellariae radix and Rhei rhizoma exhibited inhibitory activities with the IC(50) values of 145, 29.2 and 29.7 µg/ml, respectively. These results suggested that the aromatase inhibitory activity of SKRBT may contribute, to a different extent, to the improvement of serum testosterone levels.
术语“迟发性性腺功能减退症（LOH）”用于表示中年男性睾酮水平下降时的症状。虽然雄激素替代疗法（ART）可能是治疗 LOH 的有效方法，但老年男性补充睾酮的风险仍令人担忧。另一方面，为避免 ART 的不良反应，日本通常首选汉方药（传统的中日医学）治疗 LOH。然而，其药理研究较少。在这项研究中，我们使用去势小鼠作为 LOH 动物模型，研究汉方配方 saikokaryukotsuboreito（简称 SKRBT）对血清睾酮水平和精囊重量的药理作用。此外，还通过基于酶的测定法研究了其抑制 SKRBT 和其成分对芳香酶的药理机制。结果表明，SKRBT 以非剂量依赖性方式在 125mg/kg 剂量下显著改善去势小鼠的血清睾酮水平下降和精囊重量减少。SKRBT 和两种成分黄芩和大黄具有抑制活性，IC（50）值分别为 145、29.2 和 29.7μg/ml。这些结果表明，SKRBT 的芳香酶抑制活性可能在不同程度上有助于改善血清睾酮水平。
