The Anti-Cancer Effects of Honggencao (Salvia prionitis)
Honggencao (Red-Root Herb) is a folk medicinal herb; most TCM pharmacies or TCM hospitals do not carry it, and one must go to a large medicinal-herb wholesale market to buy it, or harvest it oneself. Honggencao is the whole herb with roots of Salvia prionitis Hance, a plant of the Lamiaceae family; it is also called fake sage, Jiangxi sage, red earth gall, Guangong xu, red-rootlet, Guan Yu's whiskers, earth blood-activator, and small blood-activator, among other names.
Honggencao does not appear in the famous ancient classical TCM materia medica (such as the Shennong Bencao Jing or the Bencao Gangmu); until recently it had only been used by folk healers to treat colds with fever, cough due to pneumonia, sore swollen throat, hepatitis with hypochondriac pain, diarrhea, dysentery, nephritis, vomiting of blood, and threatened abortion. The patent medicine compound Honggencao tablets (ingredients: Honggencao, Yuxingcao/Houttuynia, Jinyinhua/Lonicera, Yejuhua/Chrysanthemum indicum, Chuanxinlian/Andrographis, etc.) contain Honggencao and are mainly used for acute pharyngitis, tonsillitis, acute tonsillitis (rûe é), laryngitis, and enteritis.
Modern TCM dictionaries such as Zhonghua Bencao (under the Lamiaceae section of the comprehensive volume), Zhongyao Da Cidian, Quanguo Zhongcaoyao Huibian, and Zhejiang Yaoyong Zhiwu Zhi have included Honggencao. Zhonghua Bencao defines its functions and indications as: dispelling wind and clearing heat, promoting dampness drainage, stopping bleeding, and stabilizing the fetus; it treats colds with fever, cough and wheezing due to pneumonia, sore swollen throat, hepatitis with hypochondriac pain, enteritis with diarrhea, dysentery, nephritis, vomiting of blood, and threatened abortion. Zhongyao Da Cidian's introduction is basically the same as Zhonghua Bencao. Zhejiang Yaoyong Zhiwu Zhi records that Honggencao has the effects of draining dampness, stopping bleeding and stabilizing the fetus, and treats hepatitis, dysentery, vomiting of blood and miscarriage. Quanguo Zhongcaoyao Huibian holds that this herb can "scatter wind-cold and benefit the throat" and can treat "colds with fever, acute tonsillitis, pneumonia, enteritis with diarrhea, abdominal pain, dysentery, etc."
The Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, extracted and isolated the effective anti-cancer components from Honggencao, and through chemical modification and optimization obtained a brand-new topoisomerase II inhibitor, Salvicine (SAL). Preliminary studies show that Salvicine has a certain antitumor effect on lung cancer and gastric cancer; Salvicine once won the 2010 Second Prize of the National Natural Science Award of China.
But the anti-cancer effect of Honggencao goes further than this. Honggencao quinone (prionitin) has a very strong inhibitory effect on leukemia P388 cells; at 1 μg/ml the inhibition rate can reach 92.7%, which is rare among natural plant medicines. Honggencao paraquinone also has marked cytotoxicity against leukemia P388; prionolide from the roots of Honggencao also has significant in vitro activity against lymphatic leukemia P388 and nasopharyngeal carcinoma KB cells, with ED50 values of 2.80 μg/ml and 1.68 μg/ml respectively.
Because Honggencao has long been used only in the folk medicine of certain regions and has not spread nationwide, very few clinical TCM physicians use it, so in fact our research on its clinical application is not yet comprehensive. Whether Honggencao is a broad-spectrum anti-cancer drug remains to be further verified.
Honggencao has a strong anticoagulant effect; animal experiments show that it can extremely significantly enhance the normobaric hypoxia tolerance of mice and increase coronary blood flow in guinea pigs. Yet folk medicine commonly uses Honggencao to stop bleeding, which shows that it has a biphasic action: it can both anticoagulate and stop bleeding. Many Chinese medicines have biphasic actions; what looks like two diametrically opposite effects is in fact a common natural phenomenon.
The usual oral decocted dose of Honggencao is 15–30g; a large dose can go up to 45–60g, and for anti-cancer use it can even reach 60–100g. Folk practice uses 60g of Honggencao stewed with meat to treat hematemesis (mostly caused by gastric cancer or gastric ulcer). Honggencao is also often used for threatened miscarriage; a common method is to stew 120–150g of Honggencao with a white rooster, remove the Honggencao once cooked, and eat the chicken and drink the broth for 2–3 consecutive days.