Immunomodulatory effects of traditional Chinese herbal formulation, ginseng and dang gui ten combination (PS10)

The severe debility and immune dysfunction associated with serious disease may respond well to treatment with the tonic formulas from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). One of these, Ginseng and Dang Gui Ten Combination has gained prominence as the formula most suitable to assist convalescence after chemotherapy and radiotherapy. A literature review of the herbal combination suggests that it synergistically provides a broad range of pharmacological activity with a very low level of toxicity. The herbs may have haemopoietic, antimutagenic, antitumour, immunomodulatory and anticomplement activities and they seem to promote lymphocyte activation, interleukin production, protect various organs against toxicity, inflammation and ulceration, and promote drug delivery and radiation sensitising while protecting healthy tissue. The specific immunomodulatory effects of PS10 combination were investigated in 10 healthy volunteers (7 males and 3 females aged 43 to 58 years). The study was a longitudinal study (28 days), using a repeated measures design to investigate the pre and then post intervention changes in Natural Killer (NK) cell activity as well as total and differentiated lymphocyte counts. Furthermore, liver function tests (LFT) were included to assess any adverse effects on the liver. It was envisaged that NK cells or other white blood cell subset variation could indicate an immunomodulatory effect of the herbal formulation, PS10. Investigative methodologies included NK cell function assessment via the ability of peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) to lyse the human erythroleukemia cell line K562.(Lozzio and Lozzio, 1975) Target cells are labelled by incubation with radioactive chromium, washed, then added to a dilution series of PBMC's and incubated for 4 hours. Supernatants are harvested and the amount of intracellular chromium- 51 released into the supernatant is measured with a gamma counter. The amount of chromium-51 released is proportional to the lytic activity of the NK cells. The gradient of the line of best fit through the plotted points was recorded as the measure of cytotoxicity or killing.(Brooks and Flannery, 1980) The steeper the gradient, the greater the cytotoxicity. This pilot study demonstrated that the herbal preparation Ginseng and Dang Gui Ten Combination (PS10) increased the total number of lymphocytes cells in healthy human volunteers (n=10) (p<0.007). Although the test formulation increased NK cell activity in some participants, the change in mean NK cell cytotoxicity was not significant.