| Related families often contain similar types of compounds and an understanding of the systematic position of a medicinal plant species allows some deductions to be made about the (biologically active) secondary natural products from the species. For example, many members of the mint family are known to contain essential oil.
In this chapter, the pharmaceutical^ most important families are highlighted, especially those that have yielded many, or very important, botanical drugs. Since a species may yield several botanical drugs (e.g. |
| A. sativum L.). The genus is often included in the Liliaceae (i.e. the broadly defined lily family).
Important medicinal plants from the family • Allium sativum L. (garlic).
Morphological characteristics of the family
These perennial herbs have underground storage organs (onions), which are used for hibernation. Typically, the flowers are composed of a perianth of two whorls of three with the sepals and petals having identical shape (i.e. the calyx and corolla are indistinguishable), six stamens and three superior, fused gynaecia. |
The Life Extension Editorial Staff
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 Herbal Extracts Silymarin
Silymarin (also known as milk thistle or Silybum rnari-num) is a member of the aster family (Asteraceae) that has been used as a medicinal plant since ancient times and is widely used in traditional European medicine. The active extract of milk thistle is silymarin (Bosisio et al. 1992), a mixture of flavolignans, including silydianin, silychristine, and silibinin, with silibinin being the most biologically active. Although the mechanisms are not yet fully understood, silymarin has proven to be one of the most potent liver-protecting substances known. |
Dr. Michael Heinrich, Joanne Barnes, Simon Gibbons and Elizabeth M. Williamson
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 Interestingly, another Chinese medicinal plant used for treating malaria, Artabotrys uncinatus (Annonaceae), also contains a series of sesquiterpene peroxides (typically, yingzhaosu A; Fig. 6.35), which are responsible for the antimalarial activity.
In China, studies have been conducted into cottonseed oil (Gossypium hirsutum), which has been shown to have contraceptive effects and restrict fertility in men and women when incorporated into the diet. In men, the oil has been shown to alter sperm maturation, motility and inhibit enzymes necessary for fertilization. |
| REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
(NB: a relatively large selection of sources has been included because of the complexity of this multidisciplinary topic and the brevity of this introduction)
Bah M, Bye R, Pereda-Miranda R 1994 Hepatotoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids in the Mexican medicinal plant Packera candidissima (Asteraceae: Senecioneae). Journal of Ethnopharmacology 43:19-30
Berlin B 1992 Ethnobiological classification. Principles of categorization of plants and animals in traditional societies. |
Michael T. Murray, N.D., Joseph E. Pizzorno, N.D.
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 Khella
Khella (Ammi visnaga) is an ancient medicinal plant native to the Mediterranean region, where it has been used in the treatment of angina and other heart ailments since the time of the pharaohs. Several of its components have demonstrated effects in dilating the coronary arteries. Its mechanism of action appears to be very similar to the calcium-channel-blocking drugs—it relaxes the blood vessels by blocking the entry of calcium through small channels. Calcium influx into the blood vessel cells leads to constriction. |
Jean Carper
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 Thumbs Up: BRING ON THE VEGETABLES
Follow the example of medicinal plant expert Dr. Jim Duke at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who has a family history of colon cancer: Eat lots of vegetables. Dr. Duke says his colon polyps diminished dramatically after he deliberately ate raw cabbage every other day. It appears that other high-fiber vegetables can also put a dent in colon cancer, according to Dr. Greenwald. His analysis of thirty-seven studies done in the last twenty years showed that eating either high-fiber foods and/or vegetables cut the chances of colon cancer by 40 percent. Dr. |
| It's all a case of a botanical mixup, explains medicinal plant expert Norman Farnsworth, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois at Chicago. The real laxative, he says, is an ancient variety of rhubarb called tahuang (great yellow) grown high in the mountains of western China and Tibet. The rhizomes (underground stems) of such rhubarb—dried, cut and pulverized into a yellow powder—have been sold for centuries as a powerful purgative. In fact, rhubarb as a laxative was first mentioned in a Chinese herbal dated about 2700 B.C. |
Margarita Artschwager Kay
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 This is one of the many universal themes in medicinal plant use.
2 ¦ Plants, Their Names, and Their Actions
The history of use of specific plants is often reflected in their names. Both common and scientific names may suggest a plant's appearance, or common names in the various languages may indicate use, including healing. What is more, a given common name is commonly applied to more than one species in a genus of plants and may even be applied to a plant in a different genus, while a single species may have multiple common names even within the same language. |
| The plant pharmacopoeia used to this day—from what we know of the earliest documented medicinal plant use—includes herbs of Renaissance Europeans; remedies of sixteenth-century Aztecs, who are said to have come from the north and west of Mexico; and plant medicines of eighteenth-century peoples of northwestern New Spain. |
| This choice was a synthesis of medicinal plant knowledge reflecting the new pharmacopoeia of healing created after the Conquest.
To emphasize the common cultural use of plants as medicines by peoples of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, I call the area the American and Mexican West, a region named at different times the Chichi-meca, Northwest New Spain, Arid North America, the Greater Southwest, the Desert Borderlands, and Mexico Norteno. The area now includes much of the U.S. |
| Perhaps Asiatic bears liked Ligusticum, too, and taught the proto Na-Den6, but in any case this example lends support to the idea that the Athabascans brought medicinal plant beliefs with them when they traveled from the far north to the Southwest.
As another alternative, might starving people have discovered the medicinal properties of certain plants when forced to eat something new? Many plants now listed as famine foods and identified from coprolites, ancient human feces, are also known as medicinals (Minnis 1991). |
| Thus, the arid regions of the American and Mexican West share many medicinal plant genera with other desert lands in places such as Afghanistan, Ethiopia, India, Israel, Peru, Sudan, Syria (Ayensu 1979). Siberia and Alaska, although cold, are nevertheless arid regions and also share genera with the American and Mexican West.9 Yet although plants in the same genus or related genera of plants may be used for medicine in many areas of the world, the particular species in the genera are likely to differ. |
| It is said that all that was asked of the person to whom a medicinal plant was given was that he report on the results of its use. However, other information about the herbal garden conflicts with that reputed generosity. The historian Juan de Torque-mada, who was a member of the faculty of the Mexican College of Santa Cruz, wrote, "Montezuma kept a garden of medicinal herbs and ... the court physicians experimented with them and attended the nobility. |
Henry Pasternak, D.V.M., C.V.A.
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 In 1993, at the 41st Annual Congress on medicinal plant Research in Dusseldorf, Germany, researchers from the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Innsbruck presented a report of their findings with Cat's Claw against leukemia. They tested six pentacyclic alkaloids in Cat's Claw by placing them in cultures with leukemia cells. Their observations showed that these specific alkaloids inhibit the proliferation of leukemia cells. |
Kathi Keville
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 One herb that has had a lively history is pau d'arco. This medicinal plant has been used since the time of the Incas and the Aztecs to treat various immune-related problems, including poisonous snakebites. In the 1960s, the Brazilian press published reports that included hundreds of testimonials that declared pau d'arco a cancer cure, and people were soon ripping the bark off trees throughout the country, even climbing into the Botanical Gardens in Campinas to do so. |
Simon Mills and Kerry Bone
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 This provides an opportunity to observe the effects of the large-scale consumption of what is a powerful medicinal plant. A group of Korean clinicians and epidemiologists have taken advantage of this opportunity. In their first study, they found an inverse association between ginseng intake and cancer incidence.162 The scientists have now extended this initial study to a case-controlled study on 1987 pairs.163
The cancer sites studied were all primary tumours classified according to WHO guidelines. |
Janet Zand, LAc, OMD, Allan N. Spreed, MD, CNC, James B. LaValle, RPh, ND
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 There are texts surviving from the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and India that describe and illustrate the use of many medicinal plant products, including castor oil, linseed oil, and white poppies. In the scriptural book of Ezekiel, which dates from the sixth century b.c.e., we find this admonition regarding plant life: "... and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and leaf thereof for medicine." Egyptian hieroglyphs show physicians of the first and second centuries of the Common Era treating constipation with senna pods, and using caraway and peppermint to relieve digestive upsets. |
Simon Mills and Kerry Bone
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| Picroliv - a new hepatoprotective agent from an Indian medicinal plant, Picrorrhiza kurroa. Medicinal Chemistry Research 1995; 5 (8): 595-605
29. Thabrew MI, Hughes RD, Gove CD et al. Protective effects of Osbeckia octandra against paracetamol-induced liver injurv. Xenobiotica 1995; 9:1009-1017
30. Li L, Jiao L, Lau BH. Protective effect of gypenosides against oxidative stress in phagocytes, vascular endothelial cells and liver microsomes. Cancer Biotherapy 1993; 8 (3): 263-272
31. Liu GT. Pharmacological actions and clinical use of fructus schizandrae. |
the Editors of PREVENTION
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 If my fate were such that I could have only one medicinal plant, it would be turmeric," Dr. Broadhurst says. Although it has been used for thousands of years in India for cooking, dyeing, and medicinal uses, turmeric was largely overlooked in North America until the 1970s. When modern science finally took a closer look, the results were impressive.
When compared to the popular anti-inflammatory drug phenylbutazone (Butazolidin) in a clinical study, curcumin was found to be equally effective at treating arthritis. It's okay to take curcumin for arthritis indefinitely. |
Simon Mills and Kerry Bone
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| These would include:
• information to further assess the traditional and anecdotal uses of a medicinal plant;
• better information on which to base rational dosages;
• a better interpretation of scientific information, particularly in vitro research or in vivo studies where the active compounds are administered by injection. |
the Editors of PREVENTION
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| In some cases, as with culinary herbs, the herbs need no blending and can be taken—eaten—as they are.
The medicinal plant kava, however, has traditionally been prepared in an altogether unique way. In its native land of Polynesia, kava "mixologists" have a very intimate involvement in their herbal creation. In order to make the kava drink, they first chew the fresh root, combining it thoroughly with saliva to help break it down. Then they collect the mush in a vat of coconut milk. The resulting kava "cocktail" is then strained and drunk at public ceremonies and social gatherings. |
Francois Couplan, Ph.D.
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 Chinese medicinal plant, bringing such high prices that almost all wild plants were uprooted. Only a few might be left in the mountains of Manchuria. When American ginseng was discovered in the 17th century in Canada, the Chinese were so eager to import it that overpicking became the rule to satisfy the demand. The trade was extremely profitable, but it caused the eradication of the wild plant over a large portion of its natural range. Ginseng is very slow-growing and takes many years to develop a root of suitable size. |
Simon Mills and Kerry Bone
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| This example emphasizes what is probably an important mechanism behind the synergy observed for medicinal plant components: increased or prolonged levels of key components at the active site. In other words, components of plants which are not active themselves can act to improve the stability, solubility, bioavailability or half-life of the active components. Hence a particular chemical might in pure form have only a fraction of the pharmacological activity that it has in its plant matrix. This important example of synergy therefore has a pharmacokinetic basis. |
| Page JE, Balza F, Nishida T, Towers GH Biologically active diterpenes from Aspilia mossambicensis, a chimpanzee medicinal plant. Phytochemistry 1992; 10; 3437-3439
42. Crandon L. Grass roots, herbs, promotors and preventions: a re-evaluation of contemporary international health care planning. The Bolivian case. Soc Sci Med 1983; 17 (17): 1281-1289
43. Ngilisho LA, Mosha HJ, Poulsen S. The role of traditional healers in the treatment of toothache in Tanga Region, Tanzania. Community Dent Health 1994; 11 (4): 240-242
44. Le Grand A, Sri-Ngernyuang L, Streefland PH. |
| There are also innumerable accounts of medicinal plant use by small communities around the world, living wholly within the natural world and crafting their survival from the facilities around them42^4.
Most of what is known about herbal use in recorded history is provided by early texts, often among the earliest of all known books. However, one overwhelming gap in this record is that although in its original mode herbal medicine was most probably practised in local communities, largely by women, this is barely reflected in contemporary accounts. |
Maesimund B. Panos, M.D. and Jane Heimlich
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 The ancient Greeks used the medicinal plant for its healing properties. "Symphytum" comes from the Greek "grown together."
In an eye injury, how do we choose among Arnica, Hypericum, Ledum, and Symphytum? If there is injury to the eyeball — from a snowball, a tennis ball, or an infant sticking its fist into the mother's eye—give Symphytum. If the injury, however, is to the soft tissue of the socket of the eye, as caused by walking into a door or a blow above or below the eye, give Arnica. Ledum is distinguished by "better from cold," and Hypericum is for the injury that is excessively painful. |
Francois Couplan, Ph.D.
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| It was frequently cultivated as a medicinal plant.
The root has been eaten cooked or candied in a honey syrup. The concentrated decoction of the root was formerly the main ingredient of the original "marshmallows" recipe. Nowadays, commercial marshmallows are made with gum, starch, sugar, artificial colorings and various additives.
A maceration in water of the pulverized root yields a much pleasanter drink than the decoction, with the same demulcent and laxative virtues.
Marshmallow roots contain about 10% mucilage, sugars, starch, a fixed oil, as-paragin and other substances. |
Kathi Keville
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| Another medicinal plant that is effective for the treatment of this condition is pygeum. In France, this herb is found in over 75 percent of all doctors' prescriptions for enlarged prostate. Doctors there report that the herb reduces symptoms in at least half of the men who try it, and it does so in less than six weeks. Pygeum, which has been under scientific investigation since the 1960s, has been used to treat thousands of men. Researchers say that it seems as effective as the pharmaceutical drugs commonly suggested for enlarged prostate. |
Schuyler W. Lininger, Jr. DC
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 Supplemental 5-HTP is naturally derived from the seeds of the Griffonia simplicifolia, a West African medicinal plant.
5-HTP Has Been Used in
Connection with the Following Conditions'"
Ranking
Health Concerns
Secondary
Depression (p. 50) Fibromyalgia (p. 68)
Other
Insomnia (p. 105)
Migraine headaches (p. 121)
Weight loss and obesity (p. 1 65)
*Referto the Individual Health Concern for Complete Information
Who Is Likely to Be Deficient?
Disruptions in emotional well-being, including depression (p. 50) and anxiety (p. 14), have been linked to serotonin imbalances in the brain. |
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