Lycium barbarum is the "red business card" and "regional symbol" of Ningxia. It is famous all over the world for its unique regional ecological conditions, excellent quality and its unique nutritional and medicinal value. Its main effective chemical components include Lycium barbarum polysaccharide, betaine, flavonoids, carotenoids, vitamin C, a variety of amino acids and trace elements K, Na, CA, Mg, etc. Lycium barbarum polysaccharide (LBP) is one of the main active components of Lycium barbarum, which has a variety of pharmacological effects and biological activities.
LbGp is purified from Lycium barbarum polysaccharide. Compared with Lycium barbarum polysaccharide, the biological activity of LbGp is 1-2 orders of magnitude (10-100 times) higher than that of Lycium barbarum polysaccharide.
Since the establishment of Ningxia Zhongning Lycium barbarum (Tianren) academician workstation in April 2019, under the leadership of academician Kwok-Fai So, it has been committed to the research and application of Lycium barbarum active substances together with experts from the station units. In 2020, the latest research of Ren Chaoran, Professor of Jinan University, found that LbGp had a good effect on the treatment of depression, and obtained preliminary clinical research data.
As a famous neuroscientist, academician Kwok-Fai So also talked about the good therapeutic effect of LbGp on a variety of nervous system diseases in an interview with the educator of Guangming Daily Education magazine recently.
Is LbGp extracted from Lycium barbarum? What effect does it have on depressive symptoms?
Kwok-Fai So: Yes, LbGp is an active ingredient extracted from the treasure of traditional Chinese medicine Lycium barbarum with modern advanced technology, which is also an attempt to inherit and develop traditional Chinese medicine therapy. The latest scientific research shows that Chinese Lycium barbarum has a good therapeutic effect on a variety of nervous system diseases. For example, Chinese Lycium barbarum can regulate mood and relieve stress.
As we all know, Lycium barbarum has been used as a traditional Chinese herbal medicine and medicinal food for more than 2000 years, but the ingredients and effective mechanism of Lycium barbarum to improve mood have not been clear before. To solve this problem, I cooperated with Professor Ren Chaoran of Jinan University. By adopting the latest neuroscience research technology, we found that LbGp, an important component of Lycium barbarum, can reduce the abnormal activity of the lateral habenular nucleus by reducing the neuroinflammatory response in the brain, and finally achieve the effect of reducing stress and alleviating depression.
This discovery reveals the neural mechanism of anti depression of Lycium barbarum for the first time, and provides an important theoretical basis for the application of Lycium barbarum and its effective components in mental diseases.
Academician Kwok-Fai So stressed that once a psychological disease occurs, it has the characteristics of frequent recurrence and chronic outcome, which is closely related to social function impairment, mortality and suicide risk. Therefore, we should pay attention to the protection of some high-risk and susceptible children and adolescents, develop more effective and objective early identification technology, and realize early detection, early prevention and early treatment, so as to reduce the occurrence of psychological diseases and obtain better prognosis.