In 2015, pharmacologist Ms. Tu Youyou won the Nobel Prize for her research on artemisinin. In fact, many people do not have a specific understanding of artemisinin, but artemisinin was first used in the 1960s. It is used to treat malaria, so what kind of drug is artemisinin? Is artemisinin a Chinese medicine or a Western medicine? What is the difference between Chinese medicine and Western medicine?

1. Relevant knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine

(1) Traditional Chinese medicine is a mixture of several (one type but very few) herbal medicines (mostly herbal medicines and mineral medicines, etc.) A complete mixture (each medicinal material has tens of millions of chemical substances or compounds, and it is a mixture of several medicinal materials);

(2) Chinese patent medicine is an adaptation of traditional Chinese medicine The prescription has been roughly purified, which may retain the active ingredients, but is also a mixture of many compounds, and then made into capsules or tablets using modern pharmaceutical preparation technology;

(3) There are some irregularities Chinese patent medicines are under the guise of biotechnology, but they are not real biological medicines (a simple judgment is that most biotechnology medicines cannot be taken orally. This also applies to those health care/beauty products under the guise of biotechnology, as long as the chemical nature They are proteins/polypeptides and will be degraded if taken orally) PS: Proteins and peptides are actually the same thing, but those with large molecular weights are artificially called proteins, and those with smaller molecular weights are called peptides.

2. Knowledge about Western medicine

(1) Chemical drugs account for a large proportion of modern drugs, and the rest are mainly biological drugs.

(2) Chemical drugs have relatively small molecular weight and can be taken orally, which is more convenient. Most biological drugs are essentially proteins and peptides with large molecular weights. Oral administration will be digested and degraded and lose activity, so they can generally only be injected ( such as insulin).

Biological drugs are modern drugs, but they are not usually called Western drugs (Western drugs are equivalent to chemical drugs in the average person's concept). In recent years, biological drugs have developed rapidly, but they are mainly concentrated on serious diseases such as cancer. Life is less common (insulin is more common).

3. What kind of medicine is artemisinin?

(1) Artemisinin is just isolated and extracted from the herbal medicine Artemisia annua. Regardless of this, its The discovery is no different from the discovery of aspirin from wicker or quinine from cinchona.

(2) Artemisinin, aspirin, quinine, and others are single chemical substances/compounds separated and purified, not mixtures. Most of its subsequent production is not extracted from raw materials, but uses chemical synthesis or biological fermentation methods.

(3) The above artemisinin, aspirin, and quinine are all chemical drugs. They are single chemical components/compounds/compounds and have clear chemical structural formulas.

4. Efficacy of artemisinin

(1) Anti-malarial effect

Artemisinin drugs all have anti-malarial activity and are effective against various types of malaria . Artemisinin and its derivatives are new antimalarial drugs of the class of sesquiterpene lactones containing peroxy bridges, which are highly efficient, rapid, low-toxic, and safe. Studies have shown that artemisinin has a killing effect on Plasmodium gametocytes, and its intensity and dose are related to the maturity of the gametocytes. Artemisinin drugs can quickly kill the early gametocytes of Plasmodium, inhibit gametocytes in all stages, and interrupt the development of immature gametocytes. This inhibitory effect of artemisinin on gametocytes is not possessed by other antimalarial drugs. Its killing of gametocytes is beneficial to controlling the epidemic of malaria. Early studies have shown that the mechanism by which artemisinin selectively kills intraerythrozoic malaria parasites mainly acts on the membrane structure of the malaria parasite, causing damage to the food bubble membrane, nuclear membrane, and plasma membrane, causing swelling and shrinkage of mitochondria, and peeling off of the inner and outer membranes. , it also has a certain impact on the dyed substances in the nucleus. Artemisinin and its derivatives achieve anti-malarial purposes by affecting the surface membrane - the function of mitochondria, blocking the supply of nutrients to malaria parasites. There have been no reports of drug resistance in the more than 10 years since artemisinin drugs have been used. Artesunate and artemether also have good efficacy in the treatment of multidrug-resistant falciparum malaria.

(2) Anti-Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia effect

Animal experiments have confirmed that artemisinin is effective against Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in rats. Dihydroartemisinin 60mg was used. /kg treatment of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in rats, it was found that the survival number and survival rate of rats were higher than those in the infection group; the average lung weight, average lung weight/body weight ratio and cyst number of rats after treatment were all lower than those in the infection group. The inflammatory response of lung tissue was significantly reduced.

Further studies have shown that artemisinin mainly destroys the membrane structure of Pneumocystis carinii, causing vacuoles to appear in the cytoplasm and cysts of Pneumocystis carinii, mitochondria swelling, nuclear membrane rupture, endoplasmic reticulum swelling, and intracystic bodies. Ultrastructural changes such as dissolution and destruction.