Niu Bang Gen

Thirty-six patients aged 50-70 with knee osteoarthritis were randomised to 3 cups a day of burdock ROOT tea (2 g bags) or 3 cups of boiled water for 42 days on top of routine care. Serum IL-6 (p = 0.002), high-sensitivity CRP (p = 0.003) and malondialdehyde (p < 0.001) fell, while total antioxidant capacity (p < 0.001) and superoxide dismutase activity (p = 0.009) rose. The trial is small, has an unblindable control, and reports biomarkers rather than joint symptoms, so it supports an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory signal for the root rather than clinical benefit in osteoarthritis. It is important as the single best human study of Arctii radix as such, using root tea and not a lignan extract.

Companion report from the same 36-patient randomised single-blind trial of burdock root tea in knee osteoarthritis. After 6 weeks total cholesterol, LDL-C, the TC/HDL-C and LDL-C/HDL-C ratios and both systolic and diastolic blood pressure fell within the intervention group and HDL-C rose; between-group differences reached significance for LDL-C, HDL-C, both ratios and diastolic blood pressure. Same limitations as the parent trial: small, single-blind, boiled-water comparator, secondary endpoints.

Sixty women with polycystic ovary syndrome were randomised to Arctium lappa ROOT powder 460 mg/day or matched placebo for 12 weeks. Superoxide dismutase and catalase rose and malondialdehyde and CRP fell in the burdock arm (all p < 0.001), and right and left ovarian volumes decreased (p = 0.02 and p = 0.01). This is the only double-blind placebo-controlled trial of the root, but the dose is low, the endpoints are again chiefly biochemical, and it is a single-centre convenience sample.

Thirty-six asymptomatic Helicobacter pylori-positive subjects took a burdock complex or placebo for 8 weeks; urea breath test values and inflammatory markers fell and antioxidant capacity rose versus placebo, with reduced H. pylori adhesion to AGS cells in the accompanying in vitro work. The critical caveat is that the product is a four-ingredient combination of Arctium lappa with Angelica sinensis, Lithospermum erythrorhizon and sesame oil, so nothing here is attributable to burdock root alone; it is cited to show what the human evidence base does and does not contain.

Extraction-chemistry study quantifying the root's principal phenolics. Under ultrasound-assisted aqueous extraction at 50 degrees C, chlorogenic acid reached 484.65 micrograms per gram and cynarin 341.54 micrograms per gram of dried burdock root powder, against much lower yields with simple shaking. Free chlorogenic acid and cynarin concentrations rose and then fell with time, indicating degradation and interaction with the abundant inulin. It is the clearest quantitative picture of what is actually in a burdock ROOT water extract, which is what the clinical trials administered.

Head-to-head HPLC-DAD-MSn and activity comparison of 70 percent ethanolic extracts from roots and aerial parts of Arctium lappa and Arctium tomentosum, the two species the EMA accepts as Arctii radix. All extracts were strong radical scavengers but weak lipoxygenase inhibitors, and A. lappa material had significantly higher polyphenol content and stronger scavenging than A. tomentosum. Useful for two things: it separates root from aerial-part chemistry, and it shows the two permitted source species are not equivalent.