Anti-inflammatory Activity of Korean Folk Medicine Purple Bamboo Salt

Abstract Purple bamboo salt is a specially processed salt according to the traditional recipe using normal salt and bamboo. It has been used for the purpose of prevention and treatment of various diseases in Korea. We investigated the anti-inflammatory activity of purple bamboo salt by using human mast cell line (HMC-1). Purple bamboo salt (1 mg mL) inhibited phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) plus calcium ionophore A23187-stimulated tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, interleukin (IL)-1β and IL-6 secretion, by 67.04% ± 0.08%, 68.01% ± 1.85%, and 69.48% ± 0.54%, respectively. In addition, the expression of TNF-α mRNA in HMC-1 cells was inhibited by purple bamboo salt under the same condition. When NaCl (1 mg mL) was added, the secretion of TNF-α and IL-6 was also inhibited but the effect was markedly lower than purple bamboo salt. Our results suggest that purple bamboo salt importantly contributes to the prevention or treatment of inflammatory diseases.