Immunological aspects of Chinese medicinal plants as antiageing drugs.

The development of a predominantly geriatric community worldwide has become an inevitable fact. Antiageing agents could be, in a certain sense, attentive to the well-being of the aged. There are quite a lot of medicinal plants and prescriptions recorded in Chinese medical literatures aimed at the well-being of the aged as well as the prevention of diseases and prolongation of life-span. By means of modern scientific research, a strategy towards antiageing drugs is presented in this paper. One of the effective routes is to select the candidates based on their ethnopharmacological usages, followed by immunological investigation in connection with other antiageing experimentation. A list of Chinese medicinal plants used as or related to the antiageing agents are presented. Specifically, five Chinese traditional drugs, Herba Epimedii, Fructus Lycii, Radix Polygoni multiflori, Radix Cynanchi auriculati and Ganoderma along with a composite prescription 'American Ginseng Royal Jelly' are selected as representatives. The prospect of research and development of antiageing drugs based on natural origin is also discussed.