Dong Quai for Anemia

Research suggests that Angelica sinensis, particularly its extracted polysaccharides (ASP), may support blood health through several complementary mechanisms, including reducing hepcidin levels to improve iron availability, suppressing inflammatory signaling pathways that interfere with red blood cell production, and stimulating erythropoietin in the context of chronic kidney disease. Studies indicate that ASP has shown measurable improvements in hemoglobin, red blood cell counts, and iron metabolism in rodent models of anemia of chronic disease, iron deficiency anemia, arthritis-related anemia, and chemotherapy-induced bone marrow suppression, while large-scale Taiwanese health database analyses suggest that Angelica sinensis is among the most commonly prescribed herbs in real-world clinical practice for anemia, and one retrospective population study associated Chinese herbal medicine use that included Angelica sinensis with lower mortality in aplastic anemia patients. The available evidence consists almost entirely of animal studies, in vitro experiments, mechanistic investigations, and observational database analyses, with no randomized controlled trials directly evaluating Angelica sinensis as a standalone treatment for anemia in humans, which represents a significant gap in the evidence base. The research is directionally consistent and points to biological plausibility, but authors across multiple studies uniformly call for standardized clinical trials and safety evaluations before firm conclusions about therapeutic benefit can be drawn.