What is Eleuthero?

Useful plants which live in an extremely cold region

Eleuthero(scientific name:Acanthopanax Senticosus. HARMS) is a deciduous shrub which belongs to Araliaceae.
It is called "EZOUKOGI" because it grows in Hokkaido.
Now it grows in the east of Hokkaido(Obihiro, Kitami, Abashiri etc.), and it also grows in the "wild" in eastern part of Siberia, the north of China and the Korean Peninsula etc.; they survive in intense cold within a very limited geographical district.

Eleuthero used as a medicinal plants

The root and stem bark of Eleuthero are used as herbal medicine since a long time ago in China, and it is called "Gogahi".
In Shennong Ben Cao Jing, the oldest Chinese pharmaceutical book published about 2,000 years ago, it is mentioned that Eleuthero not only heal the disease of stomach and breast, hypogastrium pain caused by getting chilly in the belly and impairing the circulation of blood and stomachache, but also lack toxicity.

Eleuthero is called "Eleutherococcus" in Russia, which means the root of life. The study about Eleuthero has been conducted by the former Soviet Union Academy of Science since 1950. In 1960, Dr. BLESSMAN presented that Eleuthero has medicinal effects, and this announcement received a lot of attention.

《Note》Eleuthero, which is used by athletes

The former Soviet Union Athletes, who took Eleuthero and did well at Moscow Olympic in 1980, became a topic of conversation.
In the same year, Dr. Stephan Fulder, an authority of geriatrics in England, published a paper on the effectiveness of Eleuthero to athletes in New Scientist, science magazine published in England, and Eleuthero received a lot of attention. Moreover, in Japan, ski jumpers used Eleuthero to control their health at Nagano Olympic, and astronauts who had hard training used it, too.
Nowadays it is known that a lot of athletes use Eleuthero regardless of athletics.

Medicinal properties of Eleuthero

Eleuthero contains a lot of ingredients. Eleutheroside E, eleutheroside B, isofraxidine, eleutheroside B1 and chlorogenic acid are known for major ingredients. These ingredients are contained in root and stem. Hyperin, Quercetin and Rutin are contained in leaves.

Eleuthero is the same family as Korean Ginseng. It is rich in eleutheroside E(syringaresinol・diglycoside), lignan compound.

Effectiveness of Eleuthero

Eleuthero is widely known as adaptogen as well as Korean Ginseng. It is reported that active ingredients such as eleutheroside B・E, isofraxidine and chlorogenic acid have anti-inflammatory action, antitumor action and anti-fatigue action. In previous study, anti-stress effect and sleep improvement action by taking food products, used Eleuthero, were reported.

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