Human societies have been in close contact with their environments since the beginning of their formation and used the ingredients of the environment to obtain food and medicine. Awareness and ...application of plants to prepare food and medicine have been realized through trial and error, and gradually human became able to meet his needs from his surroundings. Information about medicinal plants has long been transmitted gradually and from generation to generation, a human knowledge has gradually become complete with the formation of civilizations and the provision of more facilities. Medicinal plants are used as a medical resource in almost all cultures. Ensuring the safety, quality and effectiveness of medicinal plants and herbal drugs very recently became a key issue in industrialized and developing countries. By standardizing and evaluating the health of active plant-derived compounds, herbal drugs can help the emergence of a new era of the healthcare system to treat human diseases in the future. Awareness of traditional knowledge and medicinal plants can play a key role in the exploitation and discovery of natural plant resources. In order to maintain this knowledge, comprehensive approach and collaboration are needed to maintain historical records on medicinal plants and use these resources in favour of human beings, before they are destroyed forever. Therefore, this review was conducted to investigate and describe the process of using medicinal plants throughout history. This review focuses on the recent various important challenges in quality evaluation of medicinal plants in the authenticity, efficacy, toxicity and consistency.
Thymol is a naturally occurring phenol monoterpene derivative of cymene and isomer of carvacrol. Thymol (10–64%) is one of the major constituent of essential oils of thyme (Thymus vulgaris L., ...Lamiaceae), a medicinal plant with several therapeutic properties. This plant, native to Mediterranean regions, is commonly used as a culinary herb and also with a long history of use for different medicinal purposes. Nowadays, thymol and thyme present a wide range of functional possibilities in pharmacy, food, and cosmetic industry. The interest in the formulation of pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, and cosmeceuticals based on thymol is due to several studies that have evaluated the potential therapeutic uses of this compound for the treatment of disorders affecting the respiratory, nervous, and cardiovascular systems. Moreover, this compound also exhibits antimicrobial, antioxidant, anticarcinogenesis, anti‐inflammatory, and antispasmodic activities, as well as a potential as a growth enhancer and immunomodulator. In the present review, these bioactivities have been covered because some of them can contribute to explain the ethnopharmacology of thymol and its main source, T. vulgaris. Other important aspects about thymol are discussed: its toxicity and bioavailability, metabolism, and distribution in animals and humans.
Milk thistle (Silybum marianum (L.) Gaertn.) is cultivated globally as a valuable medicinal plant. The presence of weeds poses numerous challenges to milk thistle production, making weed management ...the primary concern in milk thistle fields. Chemical weed management is an economical and promising approach to controlling weeds in cropping systems. Therefore, to investigate the tolerance of milk thistle to soil-applied herbicides, in the spring of 2022, we conducted a pot experiment as a completely randomized factorial design with four replications at the research greenhouse of the University of Birjand, Iran. The applied herbicides included metribuzin, pendimethalin, trifluralin, and ethalfluralin at six doses (0, 50, 75, 100, 125, and 150% of the recommended dose (ai ha−1)). Herbicide treatments had adverse effects on the root and shoot growth of milk thistle. Compared to the control, ethalfluralin at 150% (−60.1%) and metribuzin at 50% (−13.3%) had the highest and lowest herbicide negative effects on root dry weight, respectively. In contrast to the control, we found that ethalfluralin at 150% (−64.4%) and metribuzin at 50% (−9.3%) of the recommended dose had the highest and lowest impacts on shoot dry weight, respectively. Furthermore, herbicide applications decreased the membrane stability index (MSI) and relative water content (RWC). Root and leaf levels of malondialdehyde (MDA), total phenol, DPPH scavenging, soluble carbohydrates, and proline increased after all herbicide treatments, compared to the control. Metribuzin and pendimethalin had fewer negative effects on milk thistle growth. Consequently, these herbicides could be considered as potential options for weed control in milk thistle fields.
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•The physiological and growth responses of milk thistle to herbicides are presented.•Herbicides and dosages affected physiological and growth responses.•Ethalfluralin has the most growth-limiting effects.•Metribuzin and pendimethalin have the lowest growth limits on milk thistle.
Concerns regarding the conservation of medicinal plant species are receiving much attention due to overharvesting and exploitation. Medicinal plant harvesting is a global concern as plants are the ...source of the majority of medicines, either traditional or western, in the world. Millions of U.S. dollars of plant material are being exported annually from developing countries to developed countries. The challenge in developing countries is that, apart from the exports, the majority of people in those countries still use medicinal plant material for their basic healthcare needs. Biodiversity loss is therefore a significant challenge. This review focuses on South Africa as a developing country in which traditional medicines are highly valued, but also engages in exports of medicinal plant material to developed countries. Medicinal plant harvesting, with reference to suppliers of medicinal plant material, customary knowledge and the drivers of increased harvesting rates in South Africa is discussed. General aspects of sustainability and the causes of unsustainable medicinal plant harvesting, as well as cultivation to increase medicinal plant populations referring to its advantages and disadvantages and the challenges regarding cultivation of medicinal plant species for the medicinal plant trade market are reviewed. The shift from a cultural method of survival to a competitive trade business, South Africa's legislation regulating the management of natural environments, legislation compliance and the regulation of African traditional medicine are also reviewed.
•Commercial harvesters use environmentally destructive harvesting methods.•Legislation failed to prevent illegal harvesting and trade in South African indigenous plants.•There is a relationship between resource stock, population size and sustainable harvesting rates.•Information on how much plant material constitutes sustainable harvesting is totally lacking.•Cultivation provides advantages over wild stocks for the production of plant based medicines.
H. pectinata (L.) Poit, popularly known as “sambacaitá" or “canudinho”, is a plant endemic to north-eastern Brazil. Its aerial parts, leaves and flowers have traditionally been used to treat ...gastrointestinal disorders, rhinopharyngitis, nasal congestion, bacterial and fungal infections, fever, colic, inflammation, and pain.
The aim of this review was to provide information on the botanical characteristics, ethnomedicinal uses, phytochemistry and biological-pharmacological activities of H. pectinata.
This systematic review followed the Cochrane Handbook Collaboration and the PRISMA guidelines. The review question was what are the biological-pharmacological activities of H. pectinata presented in non-clinical studies. The search for articles was conducted in the Medline (via PubMed), Embase, Web of Science, Scopus, Virtual Health Library, SciELO, Google Scholar and the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations databases. Two reviewers independently selected the studies that met the inclusion criteria, extracted the data, and assessed the risk of bias of the included studies.
39 articles were included in this review, of which 19 reported in vitro experiments, 16 in vivo studies and 4 in vivo and in vitro experiments. H. pectinata is a plant widely used in folk medicine in north-eastern Brazil for the treatment of various ailments, such as respiratory diseases, gastrointestinal disorders, bacterial and fungal infections, and general inflammation. Supporting its popular use, several in vitro and in vivo pharmacological investigations of the essential oil and extract of H. pectinata have demonstrated their anti-inflammatory, antinociceptive, antioxidant, antidepressant, anticancer, hepatoregenerative, healing, and antimicrobial activities. H. pectinata has been reported to contain 75 bioactive constituents, comprising 9 flavonoids, 54 terpenes, and 12 other compounds.
H. pectinata is a plant commonly used in traditional medicine. Phytochemically, it contains several bioactive constituents, including terpenes and flavonoids, and has been shown to have antinociceptive, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and antitumour activity, as well as hepatorregenerative and healing effects, and low toxicity.
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•H. pectinata is widely used in traditional medicine in north-eastern Brazil.•Preparations of H. pectinata are rich in alkaloids, monoterpenes, and flavonoids.•H. pectinata exhibits diverse biological activities.•H. pectinata does not present toxicity.
Secondary metabolites (SMs) of medicinal plants are the material basis of their clinically curative effects. They are also important indicators for evaluating the quality of medicinal materials. ...However, the synthesis and accumulation of SMs are very complex, which are affected by many factors including internal developmental genetic circuits (regulated gene, enzyme) and by external environment factors (light, temperature, water, salinity, etc.). Currently, lots of literatures focused on the effect of environmental factors on the synthesis and accumulation of SMs of medicinal plants, the effect of the developmental growth and genetic factors on the synthesis and accumulation of SMs still lack systematic classification and summary. Here, we have given the review base on our previous works on the morphological development of medicinal plants and their secondary metabolites, and systematically outlined the literature reports how different environmental factors affected the synthesis and accumulation of SMs. The results of our reviews can know how developmental and environmental factors qualitatively and quantitatively influence SMs of medicinal plants and how these can be integrated as tools to quality control, as well as on the improvement of clinical curative effects by altering their genomes, and/or growth conditions.
•The secondary metabolites (SMs) of plant can be especially affected by developmental and environmental factors.•The review reveal the dynamic accumulation of SMs in medicinal plants.•Developmental and environmental factors has influence on the expression of SMs biosynthesis genes.•The review suggest regulation at post-transcriptional/translational levels on SMs.
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