Schisandra Berry Extract

Schisandra chinensis (Turcz.) Baill. (Schisandraceae) is the northern magnolia vine, whose dried ripe fruit is known as the five-flavour berry, wu wei zi in China and omija in Korea, where it has a long food history as a cold berry infusion. The characteristic constituents are dibenzocyclooctadiene lignans, the group usually shortened to schisandrins: schisandrin, also called schisandrol A (C24H32O7, CAS 7432-28-2, molar mass 432.5 g/mol), together with schisandrol B (gomisin A), schisandrin A (deoxyschisandrin), schisandrin B (gamma-schisandrin) and schisantherin A. HPLC is the reference technique across the pharmacopoeias that carry this material, including the European Pharmacopoeia monograph for Schisandra fruit and the WHO monograph, and all of them assay schisandrin as the content marker. Two specification habits cause most of the trouble in this trade, and both are easy to avoid at the purchase-order stage. The first is species. Schisandra sphenanthera, nan wuweizi or southern schisandra, is a separate official drug with a different lignan profile, and material is sometimes offered simply as schisandra without naming which vine it came from. Thovek supplies Schisandra chinensis and states the binomial on the specification. The second is assay convention: a 2% figure obtained by HPLC against a schisandrin reference standard and a 9% figure obtained by UV for total schisandrins are different measurements of different things and cannot be compared as if they were the same number. It is also worth knowing that the lignans sit largely in the seed rather than the pulp, so a seed-inclusive milling raises the assay while a de-seeded pulp extract reads lower at the same extraction efficiency; buyers formulating on taste and colour rather than lignan content sometimes prefer the latter. The finished powder is reddish-brown to deep brown and free-flowing at 80 mesh, with an aromatic odour and a pronounced sour and astringent taste. Both the colour and the acidity carry into finished goods, which is an advantage in a red-toned functional beverage and a formulation problem in a pale one, so a decolourised grade is offered where appearance matters. The material is vegan and vegetarian, non-GMO, and produced with no milk, egg, soy, fish, crustacean, gluten, sesame or tree-nut inputs and no animal-derived carriers or processing aids. Berry is sourced from north-east China, Korea and the Russian Far East; extraction, standardisation and release testing are performed in India, with certificate of analysis, HPLC chromatogram, heavy-metal and pesticide-residue reports, allergen and vegan declarations, MSDS and certificate of origin supplied per shipment.