Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia in Ancient China
Suanzaoren- an ingredient in the Suan Zao Ren Decoction (SZRD)
From the time β-Amyloid, Aβ, was discovered in 19843, it has been a protein of intense focus for drug targeting. Following the first AD drug developed, Tacrine in 1993, many AD drugs have targeted a form of the protein. They work by targeting Aβ at different stages of aggregation, during plaque formation, oligomers, protofibrils, and fibrils. Following tacrine, 140 AD drugs have been tested in clinical trials. The majority of AD treatment comes in the form of medications, but therapies have also become a common way to treat AD.
Instead of medications and therapies, treatment of dementia in ancient China consisted of the use of a multitude of herbs thought to improve mental function. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), has been used to treat neurodegenerative diseases in China and other Asian countries. It uses a holistic multi-target treatment approach. a popular method to treat these cognitive diseases. One treatment for improving cognition in ancient China was Suan Zao Ren Decoction (SZRD) which has five herbal Chinese medicines, including Suanzaoren and other Chinese roots. It was documented in the classical Chinese medical book JinGuiYaoLue (Synopsis of Prescriptions of the Golden Chamber) by Zhang Zhongjing (AD 152-219) and has been found to improve cognitive impairment and repair neuron damage6. Another herbal combination described in Wang Tao’s Treatise (752 A.D.) is called Huanglian Jiedu Decoction included the following components components- Rhizoma Coptidis, Radix Scutellariae, Cortex Phellodendri, and Fructus Gardeniae.
The traditional treatments typically used natural resources readily available in the surrounding environment including all parts of plants; seeds, roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits. The combination of these plant parts treated many neurological and related & peripheral ailments. From a cultural perspective, in Western society during the 18th and 19th centuries, people with neurodegenerative diseases were labeled as demented and sent to asylums. This was similar to what happened in ancient China and India, however, in many cases, family members took care of the afflicted either because of traditional cultural practices or because the laws of the time mandated it. Treatments existed for neurological maladies from the time medicine was in its infancy. There has been a lot of research into these ancient methods and the multi-targeted approach is being adopted into the current treatment approaches preferred by patients as noted by the Alzheimer’s Society’s 2023 report.
