%0 Journal Article
%T In Vivo Study on the Pharmacological Interactions between a Chinese Herbal Formula ELP and Antiresorptive Drugs to Counteract Osteoporosis
%A Chun-Hay Ko
%A Wing-Sum Siu
%A Hing-Lok Wong
%A Si Gao
%A Wai-Ting Shum
%A Ching-Po Lau
%A Sau-Wan Cheng
%A Jacqueline Chor-Wing Tam
%A Leung-Kim Hung
%A Kwok-Pui Fung
%A Clara Bik-San Lau
%A Quan-Bin Han
%A Ping-Chung Leung
%J Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine
%D 2012
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2012/203732
%X Antiresorptive drugs, alendronate and raloxifene, are effective in lowering bone mineral density (BMD) loss in postmenopausal women. However, long-term treatment may be associated with serious side effects. Our research group has recently discovered that a Chinese herbal formula, ELP, could significantly reduce BMD loss in animal and human studies. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the potential synergistic bone-protective effects of different herb-drug combinations using ovariectomized rats. To assess the efficacy of different combinations, the total BMD was monitored biweekly in the 8-week course of daily oral treatment. Bone microarchitecture, bone strength, and deoxypyridinoline level were also determined after 8 weeks. From our results, coadministration of ELP and raloxifene increased the total tibial BMD by 5.26% (2.5 mg/kg/day of raloxifene; ) and 5.94% (0.25 mg/kg/day of raloxifene; ) when compared with the respective dosage groups with raloxifene alone. Similar synergistic effects were also observed in BMD increase at distal femur (0.25 mg/kg/day; ) and reduction in urinary deoxypyridinoline crosslink excretion (2.5 and 0.25 mg/kg/day; both ). However, such interactions could not be observed in all alendronate-treated groups. Our data provide first evidence that ELP could synergistically enhance the therapeutic effects of raloxifene, so that the clinical dosage of raloxifene could be reduced.
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2012/203732/