中药多酚涩味的内涵认识与掩蔽方法研究进展

Connotation and mitigation of polyphenolic astringency in Chinese medicine

口感是口服药物制剂设计的重要考量因素之一。多酚是中药材生长过程中产生的次生代谢产物,具有多种生理活性,但也会产生不良的口感——涩味。作为中药的真实滋味之一,具有干燥、粗糙、起皱感的涩味严重影响药物的口感与患者服药顺应性。鉴于多酚涩味在中药存在的普遍性、现代研究的薄弱性,该文针对近年来多酚涩味形成机制、涩味评价表征方法和掩蔽矫味技术的最新研究进行归纳探讨。综合分析感官评价、动物偏好评价、化学评价、仿生评价、多酚-蛋白作用评价等表征方法,提出“统一量纲”的中药整体涩味评价方向。基于中药特点和多酚涩味机制未达成共识的情况,提出适宜于中药特性的涩味掩蔽思路。以期深化对中药涩味的认识,建立真实客观的中药涩味评价量化方法,推动多酚类中药制剂的涩味掩蔽工艺从经验试错走向科学有据。

Taste is one of the important factors in the design of oral drug preparations. Polyphenols are the secondary metabolites produced in the growth process of Chinese medicine with a variety of physiological activities. However, astringency perceived from polyphenols tastes uncomfortable. As one of the true taste of Chinese medicine, astringency with drying, rough, and wrinkled sensation, seriously affects the texture of Chinese medicine and the compliance of patients. Due to the universality of polyphenolic astringency in Chinese medicine and the weakness of modern research, this study systematically reviewed and summarized the latest research on the mechanism of polyphenolic astringency, the astringency evaluation method, and the astringency-mitigation technology. Through comprehensively analyzing the quantification methods, such as sensory evaluation, animal preference evaluation, chemical evaluation, bionic evaluation, and polyphenol-protein interaction evaluation, the direction of overall astringency assessment with "unified dimension" was proposed. Since the characteristics of Chinese medicine and the mechanism of polyphenolic astringency did not reach a consensus, this study proposed the idea of astringency mitigation suitable for Chinese medicine. This study is intended to deepen the understanding of astringency associated with Chinese medicine, and establish a real and objective astringency evaluation method for Chinese medicine, thus promoting the technique of astringency mitigation of polyphenolic Chinese medicine preparations from trial and error to science.