Growth stimulating effect of Astragalus extract HT042 in female Sprague-Dawley rats

Astragalus extract HT042 is a mixture of Astragalus membranaceus, Phlomis umbrosa and Eleutherococcus senticosus which exhibits synergistic effects in promoting longitudinal bone growth rate. The growth stimulating effect of orally administered HT042 was determined with tetracycline as a marker of the longitudinal bone growth in adolescent female Sprague-Dawley rats. After intravital tetracycline labelling, longitudinal bone growth rate was determined by measuring the distance between the fluorescent band and epiphyseal end line of growth plate in the proximal tibia metaphysis. 5'-Bromo-2'-deoxy-uridine (BrdU) labelling was used for the quantitative analysis of chondrocyte proliferation. The width of the growth plate was also determined. HT042 led to the increase of longitudinal bone growth rate up to 433.50 ± 21.61 µm per day, compared with the control group, 410.03 ± 17.40 µm. Width of the growth plate was also increased by 5.0% from control. A 1.5-fold increase of chondrocyte proliferation was measured by BrdU labelling in HT042 group compared to control. Consequently, HT042 increased longitudinal bone growth rate by stimulating chondrocyte proliferation in the growth plate. HT042 could be helpful for increasing height growth of children.

Acknowledgement: This study was supported by the Traditional Korean Medicine R&D program funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI) (HI14C0976).