Rehmannia glutinosa is one of the 50 fundamental herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine

Traditional Chinese medicine

Traditional Chinese Medicine refers to a broad range of medicine practices sharing common theoretical concepts which have been developed in China and are based on a tradition of more than 2,000 years, including various forms of herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage , exercise , and dietary therapy...

, where it has the name Sheng Di huang . It is often sold as gān dì huáng , gān meaning "dried."

Medicinal uses

One of the traditional uses in traditional Chinese medicine for Rehmannia glutinosa has been in the area of tinnitus

Tinnitus

Tinnitus |ringing]]") is the perception of sound within the human ear in the absence of corresponding external sound.Tinnitus is not a disease, but a symptom that can result from a wide range of underlying causes: abnormally loud sounds in the ear canal for even the briefest period , ear...

 and hearing loss. The plant seems to have efficacy in the scavenging of free radicals in vitro

In vitro

In vitro refers to studies in experimental biology that are conducted using components of an organism that have been isolated from their usual biological context in order to permit a more detailed or more convenient analysis than can be done with whole organisms. Colloquially, these experiments...

. This study however, does not report the effects of Rehmannia glutinosa in human subjects.

Chemical constituents

A number of chemical constituents including iridoid

Iridoid

Iridoids are a class of secondary metabolites found in a wide variety of plants and in some animals. They are monoterpenes biosynthesized from isoprene and they are often intermediates in the biosynthesis of alkaloids. Chemically, the iridoids usually consist of a cyclopentane ring fused to a...

s, phenethyl alcohol

Phenethyl alcohol

Phenethyl alcohol, or 2-phenylethanol, is the organic compound with the formula C6H5CH2CH2OH. This colourless liquid occurs widely in nature, being found in a variety of essential oils, including rose, carnation, hyacinth, Aleppo pine, orange blossom, ylang-ylang, geranium, neroli, and champaca...

, glycoside

Glycoside

In chemistry, a glycoside is a molecule in which a sugar is bound to a non-carbohydrate moiety, usually a small organic molecule. Glycosides play numerous important roles in living organisms. Many plants store chemicals in the form of inactive glycosides. These can be activated by enzyme...

s, cyclopentanoid monoterpene

Monoterpene

Monoterpenes are a class of terpenes that consist of two isoprene units and have the molecular formula C10H16. Monoterpenes may be linear or contain rings...

s, and norcarotenoids, have been reported from the fresh or processed roots of R. glutinosa"

See also

• Chinese herbology 50 fundamental herbs
• Rehmannia
  Rehmannia
  Rehmannia is a genus of six species of flowering plants in the order Lamiales, endemic to China.The genus was included in the family Scrophulariaceae or Gesneriaceae in some older classifications. The current placement of the genus is in neither Scrophulariaceae s.s. nor Plantaginaceae s.l....