Clearance of Free Silica in Rat Lungs by Spraying with Chinese Herbal Kombucha

Table 7

The effects of the tested treatments on dust removal from the lungs of silica-exposed rats.

Treatment	Whole lung free silica content (mg)	Free silica removed from the lung (mg)	Free silica clearance rate for the whole lung (%)	Silica discharge rate for the whole lung (mg/d)
Negative control	2.0±1.0	—	—	—
Chinese herbal kombucha	38.0±21.0^∗	13.97±20.65	27.92±41.30	0.47±0.69
Kombucha	54.0±5.0	−2.46±4.68	−4.92±9.36	−0.08±0.16
Tetrandrine	52.0±12.0	−0.18±11.78	−0.35±23.55	−0.01±0.39
Positive control	44.0±6.0	5.81±5.91	11.63±11.83	0.25±0.20

—: because the rats in the negative control group were not exposed to silica, the analysis was not performed in this case.
*Value differs significantly from that for the tetrandrine treatment group (𝑃<0.05).