Anti-aging and health-promoting constituents derived from traditional oriental herbal remedies: information retrieval using the TradiMed 2000 DB.

Asia, Korea, China, and Japan have legally adopted the traditional Oriental (Chinese) medical system along with the Western system. A number of traditional herbal drugs including the polypharmacy type of prescriptions (a combination of multiple herbs) are available and are widely dispensed. Herbal therapy used in traditional Oriental medicine appears to be quite different from its counterpart Western drug therapy. The polypharmacy type of herbal therapy generally exhibits holistic effectiveness by exerting activities to multitarget organs (organ systems) according to the principles of traditional Oriental medicine. The Traditional Oriental Medicine Database (TradiMed 2000 DB) is a unique database of traditional Oriental herbal therapy containing a variety of information such as formulae, chemical information on ingredients, botanical information on herbal materials, and a dictionary of disease classification (TOM and Western classification). A formula, namely, the Sip-Jeon-Dae-Bo-Tang consisting of 10 different herbs, was selected by retrieving information from the TradiMed 2000 DB. Then its tonic effects for elderly people were shown as an example.