Evaluation of the Quality of Codonopsis Radix in Different Growth Years by the AHP-CRITIC Method

The quality of traditional Chinese medicines (TCM) has a significant correlation with the source and growth years. However, there is no research on the relationship between the growth period and the quality of Codonopsis Radix (CR). This work aims to evaluate the quality of CR in different growth years (2–5 years). First, the content of 6 efficacy-related and 28 nutrient-related components in different growth years of CR was analyzed. The results showed that with the increase in growth years of CR, the content of some components increased, while some decreased. Then, the AHP-CRITIC method was performed to score the CR in different growth years, the results showed that the comprehensive score of CR increased with the increase of growth years, and the 5-year-CR had the highest score. Finally, in vitro activity assays were designed to verify the evaluation results. The results demonstrated that with the increase of growth years, the spleen lymphocyte proliferation activity and DPPH free radical scavenging activity of CR were enhanced, which proved that the AHP-CRITIC method is reasonable to evaluate the quality of CR in different growth years. The aforementioned findings demonstrated that CR quality improved with longer planting years.