Does icariin help with pain?

Yes, icariin (ICA) is a novel, effective, long-lasting analgesic drug, and its pharmacological mechanism suppresses the upregulation of CINC-1/IL-8. Considering that ICA is a natural extract of Herba Epimedii, it may be a promising alternative pain killer for LBP. ICA treatment resulted in a significant amelioration of mechanical allodynia in a dose-response manner, and the analgesic effect could last for two weeks, even during the washout period. More importantly, the mechanism of an analgesic pharmacological effect in ICA was to suppress the upregulated CINC-1, the homolog of IL-8 in rats, which is a crucial proalgesic factor contributing to LBP in IVDs.

Icariin is a principal bioactive constituent isolated from Epimedium. Emerging evidence suggests that icariin possesses multiple health-promoting functions, including correcting endothelial dysfunction, attenuating DNA damage, repressing macrophage-derived foam cell formation, and suppressing inflammatory responses. It has been indicated that icariin inhibits the fibril formation of Aβ42 in a dose-dependent manner and prevents neurons from oxidative stress. Moreover, icariin has been suggested to prevent tau hyper-phosphorylation and suppress endoplasmic reticulum stress, thus improving cognitive function and attenuating neurite atrophy in mouse/rat AD models.

References

[1] Jitian Li. “Icariin Ameliorates Lower Back Pain in Rats via Suppressing the Secretion of Cytokine-Induced Neutrophil Chemoatractant-1.” BioMed Research International (2020): 4670604.

[2] Liang Ma . “Non-polyphenolic natural inhibitors of amyloid aggregation.” European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 192 (2020): Article 112197.