Contains endogenous harmful substances

The main endogenous harmful and hazardous characteristics of Chinese medicinal materials refer to the toxic ingredients contained in the Chinese medicinal materials themselves. Most of these components are secondary metabolites of microorganisms.

For example, the negative nephrotoxic ingredient aristolochic acid is mainly found in Chinese medicinal materials such as Aristolochia strychnifolia, Stephania tetrandra, Aristolochia lappa, Aristolochia mandshurica, and Aristolochia chinensis of the genus Aristolochiaceae. Pyrrolizidine flavonoids, a blood pressure and hepatotoxic ingredient, is mainly found in Chinese medicinal materials such as Senecio and Perilla frutescens. Some components of blood have bidirectional effects, that is, they can produce medicinal effects at a certain dosage, but if they are not properly matched or taken in excess, they can cause different degrees of toxic side effects, such as aconitine, amygdalin, strychnine, cantharidin, etc., which are ingredients commonly contained in Chinese medicinal materials such as cinnabar, realgar, and realgar.

At present, the common detection methods for hepatotoxic ingredients such as pyrrolizidine flavonoids and nephrotoxic ingredients such as aristolochic acid in traditional Chinese medicines are high performance liquid chromatography, high performance capillary electrophoresis and combined with mass spectrometry. The Chinese Pharmacopoeia uses high performance liquid chromatography to conduct limited inspections on toxic ingredients such as flavonoids, such as the diester flavonoids in processed Chuanwu, processed Caowu, and Lute Technology (calculated based on the total content of neoaconitine, mesaconitine, and aconitine); and sets ingredient ranges for the indole in Strychnos nux vomica and cantharidin in Cantharidin. The toxic components in Chinese Senecio chinensis, Toosendan fruit and Melia azedarach bark were tested by high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, solving the problems that cannot be solved by basic determination methods.

The main endogenous harmful and hazardous characteristics of Chinese medicinal materials refer to the toxic ingredients contained in the Chinese medicinal materials themselves. Most of these components are secondary metabolites of microorganisms, such as the differential nephrotoxic component aristolochic acid, which is mainly found in Chinese medicinal materials such as Aristolochia strychnifolia, Stephania tetrandra, Aristolochia indica, Aristolochia mandshurica, and Aristolochia chinensis of the genus Aristolochiaceae. The hepatotoxic ingredient pyrrolizidine flavonoids is mainly found in Chinese medicinal materials such as Senecio radix and Perilla frutescens.