Hi guys,
Just had a quote for 1kg of 98% pure cycloastragenol for US$51,833 not including shipping from China. On a related note, one kilogram of gold is currently only $41,776.
it seems that Astragalis root is cheap (about $15 per pound) available from Amazon from a variety of vendors. The extraction of astragalosides appears to be relatively straightforward :- something that could be done with a home microwave, some ethanol and some basic chemistry equipment ... see the abstract below for the recipe. I was wondering if anyone has tried this? Also, iron salts are sparingly soluble in alcohol, so I imagine minimum iron would be retained in the solute. Also, I have read references that many pounds of raw Astragalis root is required to manufacture just 5mg or so of cycloastregol. I'm skeptical of this claim as a external company provides cycloastregol 5mg for $1.15 per tablet. If one tablet is derived from three pounds of astragalis root it would mean they would need to source their root less than 10 cents a pound to be economically viable. Does anyone know the concentration of cycloastegol in the root?
http://www.sciencedi...308814609010656
Optimisation of the microwave-assisted extraction process for four main astragalosides in Radix Astragali
The MAE procedure was optimised, validated and compared with other conventional extraction techniques. MAE gave the best result due to the highest extraction efficiency within the shortest extraction time. The optimal conditions of MAE were: employing 80% ethanol as solvent, ratio of solid/liquid 1:25 (g/ml), temperature 70 °C, irradiation power 700 W and three extraction cycles, each 5 min. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of Radix Astragali materials after different extractions were obtained to provide visual evidence of the disruption effect. This is the first report on combining MAE with LC-ESI/MS for the extraction and quantification of astragalosides I–IV in Radix Astragali. The developed MAE method provided a good alternative for the extraction of triterpenoid saponins in Radix Astragali as well as other herbs.
