Velvet Antler Health Benefits - Mother Earth Living

Humans and the European red deer have had a long relationship–sometimes mutually beneficial, sometimes stormy. For now, it looks as if the 2,000-year saga has a happy ending for both. And humans may get a potent medicine out of the deal.

In New Zealand in the early 1970s, the deer population explosion threatened to become an environmental disaster. Then, inspired by successful deer farming in Scotland, New Zealanders began a conscious effort to domesticate the deer. Now, instead of ravaging native vegetation, the red deer plays a starring role in an agricultural success story.

Of the many products that the deer provide, one of the most exciting–and least traumatic to the deer–is a natural medicine called velvet antler (also called pilose deer antler). For thousands of years, the Chinese and other Asians have used velvet antler in a variety of ways, ranging from restorative tonics to tumor treatments. More recently, research has been conducted on the chemistry, pharmacology, and use of velvet antler extracts in Korea, China, and Russia.

Although widely accepted in traditional Asian medical systems, velvet antler has only recently attracted the attention of the West. More chemical, pharmacological, and clinical studies will be needed to ferret out its true benefits as a dietary supplement. In the meantime, you will find velvet antler products sitting on the shelf next to echinacea and other immune-system stimulants and tonic herbs at your local health-food store.

Is it really an herb?

Animal-derived “herbs” have always been a part of traditional medicine systems, even in the United States. Traditional Chinese Medicine includes more than 5,000 ingredients, including plants, minerals, and animal parts. About 500 are commonly used today and are listed as official drugs in the 1995 Chinese Pharmacopeia.

Velvet antler is one of the most widely used animal items, not only in China but also in other Asian countries, particularly Korea. The Chinese have used velvet antler as a traditional medicine for at least 2,000 years; it is thought to promote virility, replenish vital essence and blood, and strengthen bones and tendons.

Velvet antler is derived from several species of deer, but consists mainly of the young pilose (or hairy) antlers of two major deer species, Cervus nippon, the Japanese or Asian deer (known as hua-lu-rong), and Cervus elaphus, the European red deer (ma-lu-rong).

Velvet antler is the rapid growth phase of deer antler, before it becomes hard and calcified. At this stage, the antler is covered with a velvet-like substance, hence the name. The antler is harvested from the deer halfway through the growth process, after fifty to sixty days. It’s frozen within three hours of harvest until further processing and grading. A velvet “stick,” or piece of antler, is graded according to its circumference, length, appearance, and condition. For the Korean market, the antler is often thinly sliced. The quality is then determined by Korean buyers or practitioners based on color, translucence, and other visual factors.

A chemical factory

Medicinal potential for humans aside, deer antler has always held special interest for biologists, especially during the rapid growth in the spring prior to calcification. Deer antler is the only mammalian organ that regenerates itself each year.

At the velvet stage, the antler grows at a tremendous rate, up to an inch a day. The velvet is a virtual chemical factory, containing

• calcium phosphate
• calcium carbonate
• proteins
• collagen
• trace amounts of androgens and estrogens
• more than twenty different amino acids
• chondroitin A sulfate, a lubricant found in joints and believed to have anti-inflammatory activity
• lysophosphatatidyl choline, which may be in part responsible for deer antler’s attributed effects on blood pressure
• gangliosides, which have been associated with increased learning and memory functions
• various growth factors, which are probably responsible for increasing growth in the antler

No single compound or even group of compounds has been identified that could be responsible for the broad range of activity attributed to velvet antler. Scientists hope to one day understand the chemical mechanisms that spur the antler’s growth. This could lead to a breakthrough in understanding how to regenerate tissue, or even how to re-create organs in humans.

The popularity of velvet antler is part of what has driven the industry in New Zealand, which has captured 60 percent of the Korean market over Chinese and Russian imports. New Zealand now leads the world in both production of and research on velvet antler. Total production is valued in the tens of millions of dollars annually, according to M. J. Loza of the New Zealand Game Board.

Velvet antler’s health benefits

Three times the number of scientific studies have been conducted for deer antler as for echinacea. New Zealand researchers conducted the first Western-style pharmacological and clinical studies, under the direction of James Suttie, Ph.D., head of the deer research program at AgResearch. The firm is a corporation formed in 1992 by combining New Zealand’s Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Department of Science and Industrial Research.

Is antler harvesting humane?

What about the poor deer? You might be surprised: The process of harvesting velvet antler is handled with utmost care, much like a veterinary surgical procedure. The animals are carefully selected and pampered for the quality of their antlers, and they are returned to pasture the same day as the harvest.

I went to a 50,000-acre wild deer estate in a beautiful mountain wilderness and participated in herding deer from a helicopter. I also visited deer farms, which primarily produce venison. I was struck by how calm the deer were and amazed to find that the deer fences were barely six feet high. Any red deer, even a young doe, can jump over such fences in one standing leap. But it appears that the grass is greener inside the fence. New Zealand researchers have discovered not only what grasses the deer prefer, but also what forbs, or meadow herbs, they like best. The pastures they roam are planted with specially selected grass species intermixed with bitter herbs like chicory, which deer love.

In New Zealand, truck drivers who haul deer must take a course and then be certified before hauling deer. They are trained how to read deer’s signals, how to handle deer with simple hand gestures, and what the animals need. Trailers must be designed to exact specifications, including angles of ramps, specialized ventilation, and water sprinkling systems designed for cooling. Everything is designed with the deer’s comfort and safety in mind.

When the antlers are harvested, a licensed vet must be present or supervise the harvest through a certified farmer licensed to remove velvet. Before removal, the stags are required to be carefully handled to reduce stress. They are given a sedative to protect both the deer and the handler, and a local anesthesia is administered before removal of the antler.

One study showed that velvet antler extracts increased the proliferation of human white blood cells in laboratory experiments, suggesting possible immune stimulating or immune modulating actions, Suttie says. In other laboratory tests, deer antler demonstrated pronounced anti-inflammatory activity. Clinical researchers are currently exploring velvet antler’s potential for reducing muscle tissue damage and improving recovery time in athletes.

Research conducted in Asia and Russia points at other potential benefits of velvet antler:

• increased red blood cell and hemoglobin counts
• improved uterine muscle tone and increased strength of uterine contractions
• increased blood output from the heart
• symptom improvement in conditions ranging from anemia to benzene poisoning
• improved healing in convalescing patients and in chronic circulatory disorders
• some symptom improvement for impotence caused by atrophy and weakness of the kidneys

Practitioners use velvet antler primarily to promote virility, replenish vital essence and blood, strengthen the bone and tendons, promote draining of abscesses, and to regulate meridians relative to the uterus and conception in women. It’s also prescribed for impotence, involuntary discharge of semen, infertility, lassitude, dizziness, tinnitus, back pains with a cold sensation, plus “cold deficiency” and vaginal discharge in women. It’s generally used in a dose of 1 to 2 g per day.

By Steven Foster

Steven Foster is lead editorial adviser of Herbs for Health and author of several books on herbal medicine, including 101 Medicinal Herbs (Interweave Press, 1998) and The Herbal Drugstore (Rodale, 2000). His articles and photographs appear frequently in our magazine and other publications.

Additional reading

Clifford, D. H., et al. “Can an extract of deer antlers alter cardiovascular dynamics?” American Journal of Chinese Medicine 7(4):345-350.
Hsu, H.Y., et al. Oriental Materia Medica–A Concise Guide. Long Beach, California: Oriental Healing Arts Institute, 1986.
Pan, X., et al. A Coloured Atlas of the Chinese Materia Medica Specified in the Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China. 1995 ed. Guangdong: Guangdong Science & Technology Press, 1996.