Phytochemical Analysis of Medicinal Plants
No one knows exactly how many different medicinal plants are used in the world today, but we do know that medicinal plants are enormously important in both traditional and Western medicine. Ethnobotany, the study of traditional plant use, is a field of growing interest to research scientists and pharmaceutical companies looking to develop new and more effective drugs.
Analyzing the phytochemicals in medicinal plants provides scientists with insight into how effective plants are medicinally, and understanding how and why they are effective can lead to the development of new medicines.
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History
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People have used medicinal plants throughout human history, and long before good records were kept about plant use. There is evidence that humans have been using medicinal plants not just for centuries, but for thousands of years.
Otzi the "Ice-man," a 5,000-year-old man found preserved in the retreating glaciers of Europe, was carrying a pouch of mushrooms that have phytochemicals known to fight intestinal parasites, and analysis showed Otzi did indeed have intestinal parasites when he died from injuries. Texts from ancient India and China also contain descriptions of countless plant-derived medicines.
Types
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Phytochemical analysis of medicinal plants has shown that numerous compounds in plants traditionally used for medicinal purposes have chemical properties effective at treating illness. In the book, "Modern Phytomedicine: Turning Medicinal Plants Into Drugs," the authors state that phytochemicals extracted from medicinal plants include alkaloids, tannins, flavonoids, sterols and numerous other chemicals. Tannins, flavonoids and alkaloids are chemicals that are known to have anti-bacterial properties.
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Features
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In the Jan. 5, 2009 issue of "African Journal of Biotechnology," researchers report that the medicinal plant Lasienthera africanum, which is a medicinal plant used to fight bacterial infections, does indeed contain antibacterial phytochemicals that were effective in the laboratory against the bacteria E. coli, Sal. typhi and K. pneumoniae.
Function
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More than a quarter of all pharmaceutical drugs currently used in the United States are derived from the phytochemicals in rainforest plant species. Seventy percent of plants identified by the National Cancer Institute as having anti-cancer properties come from the world's rainforests, but only a tiny fraction of rainforest plants have yet been chemically analyzed.
Significance
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According to the June 2006 issue of "Piribo," there are approximately 200,000 known higher order plants, but only 5-15 percent of these plants have been analyzed for their phytochemical bioactive properties. The global market for plant-derived drugs was worth $18 billion in 2005, and analysts expect this figure to continue to grow.
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References
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- Photo Credit Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Sean McGrath
