What is fermented botanical?
Medicinal botanical, which is also called herbal medicine, usually be utilized in Chinese medicine system. Since most Chinese medicines are medicinal botanicals, Chinese medicine is also referred as Chinese herbal medicine. Compared with western medicine, medicinal botanical have less toxicity and side effects as well as less likely to develop drug resistance.
Medicinal botanicals have been used in China for thousands of years; according to the statistics, there are even more than 10,000 kinds of medicinal botanicals currently used in China. As more and more scientists devote themselves to the medicinal botanical, the pharmacological mechanisms of medicinal botanical have also been widely discussed. Owing to the trend, the active substances of medicinal botanicals continue to be identified, prompting the public to have more knowledge about them. For instance, studies have shown that tyrosol and salidroside in Rhodiola have strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory abilities, and are often used as criterion in evaluating the quality of Rhodiola.
Recently, several studies have shown that fermentation can effectively increase and convert the content of active substances in medicinal botanicals. For example, the tyrosol content of Rhodiola can reach more than 3 times after fermentation by lactic acid bacteria; The 6-shogaol contained in ginger can be converted by Aspergillus niger into 6-paradol, which has neuroprotective, anti-oxidant and anti-tumor abilities. In contrast to artificial chemical synthesis, this natural biotransformation method is more secure in terms of safety, making fermented botanicals more important in the field of health food.