Review Article A Review of the Pharmacological Effects of the Dried Root of

Copyright © 2013 Huan Zhang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been widely used in China for thousands of years to treat and prevent diseases. TCM has been proven safe and effective, and it is being considered as one of the important types of complementary and alternative medicine and receives increasing attention worldwide. The dried root of Polygonum cuspidatum Sieb. et Zucc. (also known as “Hu Zhang ” in Chinese) is one of themedicinal herbs listed in the Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China. HuZhang is widely distributed in the world. It can be found in Asia and North America and is used as folk medicine in countries such as Japan and Korea. In China, Hu Zhang is usually used in combination with other TCM herbs. The therapeutic uses of those Hu Zhang-containing TCM prescriptions or formulations are for treating cough, hepatitis, jaundice, amenorrhea, leucorrhea, arthralgia, burns and snake bites. Recent pharmacological and clinical studies have indicated that Hu Zhang has antiviral, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory