Osteoporosis fracture with high disability and mortality is a difficult problem that seriously affects the life quality of individuals. At present, there is still a lack of anti-osteoporosis drugs with clear target and significant efficacy in the clinical practice. Rehmanniae Radix and its prescriptions have significant clinical effects. In this regard, more and more studies have reported the effects and mechanisms of Rehmanniae Radix and its active components, and the certain research outputs have been achieved. In this article, the PubMed, Web of science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Wanfang database were searched to collect and organize the latest research progress of Rehmanniae Radix treatment of osteoporosis in the recent 10 years. We summarized the research dynamics as well as the function indexes and mechanisms of the raw and processed Rehmanniae Radix, active ingredients such as catalpol, aucubin, acteoside and Rehmanniae Radix polysaccharide, and their formulating prescriptions, and then excavated the potential active ingredients, targets and signaling pathways, including the effect on bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells, promoting the osteoblast proliferation and promoting osteogenesis differentiation(increasing alkaline phosphatase, typeⅠ collagen, osteoprotegerin, and osteocalcin and promoting calcium deposits), increasing the bone density, inhibiting the osteoclast quantity and differentiation, promoting the osteoclast apoptosis, and reducing tartrate resistant acid phosphatase and bone resorption pit area to provide the reference and develop new ideas for developing Rehmanniae Radix prescriptions for treatment of osteoporosis and exploring its mechanism.
Keywords: Rehmanniae Radix; Rehmanniae Radix polysaccharide; catalpol; osteoporosis.