• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.33-38
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• 2007

Recently, the lifetime prevalence rate of alcoholism in Korea shows to be quite higher than that in American, European and Asian countries indicating approximately 11 %. Also prevalence rate of male adult alcoholism in total inpatient of a polyclinic hospital shows to be very high indicating 16.5 % to 38.2 %, and from this result it is could be supposed that considerable physical diseases are related with alcoholic problem. According to the disorder related with alcohol is one of the most important hygienic problems in our society. In spite of the development of medicine, there is no certain medication or method in the field of the adult diseases or cancers under the actual circumstances that foods and drugs have been taking approximately for the purpose of prevention; and from this viewpoint, functional foods proved to be physically effective compared to general foods have been developing and the natural substances that could increase the effectiveness of general food have been produced. Alcohol addiction has been inducing several social problems and according to the increasing trend following the development of society it is strongly required to develop the medication. Therefore the research regarding to the treatment for the alcohol addiction has been performed widely, and especially the attempt to developof new medication using herbal medicine has been performing as in the development of the medication for other diseases. This study was designed to investigate the effect of Glycyrrhizae Radix which is the representative herbal medicine and has been used widely in the preparation of herbal medicine on alcohol intake and alcohol withdrawal syndrome.