"Naodesheng Wan" for Cerebrovascular Disease and Brain Tumors
The formula "Naodesheng Wan" (Brain-Revitalizing Pills) comes from the Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China, Part I, 2005 edition. Its composition is: Sanqi (Notoginseng) 78 g, Chuanxiong (Sichuan Lovage Rhizome) 78 g, Honghua (Safflower) 91 g, Gegen (Kudzu Root) 251 g, Shanzha (Hawthorn Fruit, pit removed) 157 g.
Preparation: crush the five herbs into a fine powder, sift and mix well. To every 100 g of powder add 140-150 g of refined honey to make large honey pills, each weighing 9 g. Take one pill orally three times a day. If the patient cannot tolerate large honey pills, water-honey pills the size of a parasol tree seed may be made instead, also at 9 g each time, three times a day. Many manufacturers produce Naodesheng Wan; if patients do not wish to prepare the pills themselves, they can buy the patent medicine and take it directly.
This formula activates blood and resolves stasis, unblocks the meridians, and awakens the brain and opens the orifices. It chiefly treats cerebral arteriosclerosis, ischemic stroke, and sequelae of cerebral hemorrhage. Naodesheng Wan has a simple composition; all five herbs in it activate blood and resolve stasis.
Sanqi both resolves stasis and stops bleeding, and activates blood and relieves pain. It treats various bleedings, traumatic injuries, stasis swelling and pain, and chest impediment with stabbing pain. In addition, Sanqi is also called Sanshenqi because it contains the same ginsenosides as Renshen (Ginseng); hence it also has a deficiency-supplementing action.
Chuanxiong activates blood and moves qi, and dispels wind and stops pain. It is mainly used for irregular menstruation, dysmenorrhea, amenorrhea, difficult labor, chest impediment and heart pain, hypochondriac pain, numbness of the limbs, traumatic injuries, sores and swellings, headache, rheumatic impediment pain, and ischemic cerebrovascular disease. Chuanxiong is called "the qi-medicine within blood"; TCM holds that it "ascends to the head and face and descends to the sea of blood," and it is an important herb for treating headache.
Honghua activates blood and unblocks the channels, and dispels stasis and stops pain. It is mainly used for blood-stasis amenorrhea, dysmenorrhea, postpartum stasis obstruction, abdominal concretions and gatherings, chest impediment and heart pain, and traumatic injuries. Honghua is often combined with Chuanxiong; together, their blood-activating, stasis-resolving, and pain-relieving effect is stronger, and they excel at treating blood-stasis chest pain or limb numbness.
Although Gegen and Shanzha are not classified as blood-activating stasis-resolving herbs, modern pharmacological research shows that both have such effects.
TCM classifies Gegen as a exterior-releasing diaphoretic herb, holding that it induces sweating and releases the muscles, clears heat and promotes rash eruption, generates fluids and stops thirst, and raises yang to stop diarrhea. It is commonly used for neck and upper-back stiffness and pain caused by exterior syndromes, inadequate measles eruption, thirst in febrile disease, wasting-thirst, and damp-heat diarrhea and dysentery. In Shang Han Lun (Treatise on Cold Damage), treating "stiff and tense neck and back" uses Gegen-based formulas such as Gegen Tang or Guizhi Jia Gegen Tang. Gegen can activate blood and resolve stasis, relieving stasis blockage in the carotid arteries and the cerebral vessels above them.
Shanzha belongs to the stomach-strengthening, digestion-promoting herbs, but it also strengthens the heart, lowers blood pressure, increases coronary flow, dilates blood vessels, has antiarrhythmic effects, protects against myocardial ischemia and necrosis, lowers blood lipids, and counteracts atherosclerosis. It is an important antihypertensive and blood-activating stasis-resolving herb. Hence using Shanzha in this formula both activates blood and lowers blood pressure, while also promoting digestion.
Overall, this is a delicately composed formula with clear effects. Besides treating cerebrovascular disease, it may also be used to relieve some symptoms of brain-tumor patients, such as headache, dizziness, and hemiplegia.