Plants or derivatives used to treat medical conditions in humans or animals
Medicinal plants, also called medicinal herbs, have been discovered and used in
traditional medicine practices since prehistoric times.
Plants synthesize hundreds of chemical compounds for various functions, including
defense and protection against
insects,
fungi,
diseases, and
herbivorousmammals.[2]
The earliest historical records of herbs are found from the
Sumerian civilization, where hundreds of medicinal plants including
opium are listed on clay tablets,
c. 3000 BC. The
Ebers Papyrus from
ancient Egypt,
c. 1550 BC, describes over 850 plant medicines. The Greek physician
Dioscorides, who worked in the Roman army, documented over 1000 recipes for medicines using over 600 medicinal plants in De materia medica,
c. 60 AD; this formed the basis of
pharmacopoeias for some 1500 years. Drug research sometimes makes use of
ethnobotany to search for pharmacologically active substances, and this approach has yielded hundreds of useful compounds. These include the common drugs
aspirin,
digoxin,
quinine, and
opium. The compounds found in plants are diverse, with most in four biochemical classes:
alkaloids,
glycosides,
polyphenols, and
terpenes. Few of these are
scientifically confirmed as medicines or used in conventional medicine.
Medicinal plants are widely used as folk medicine in non-industrialized societies, mainly because they are readily available and cheaper than modern medicines. The annual global export value of the thousands of types of plants with medicinal properties was estimated to be US$60 billion per year and growing at the rate of 6% per annum.[citation needed] In many countries, there is little regulation of traditional medicine, but the
World Health Organization coordinates a network to encourage safe and rational use. The botanical herbal market has been criticized for being poorly regulated and containing
placebo and
pseudoscience products with no scientific research to support their medical claims.[3] Medicinal plants face both general threats, such as
climate change and
habitat destruction, and the specific threat of over-collection to meet market demand.[3]
Plants, including many now used as
culinary herbs and
spices, have been used as medicines, not necessarily effectively, from prehistoric times. Spices have been used partly to counter
food spoilage bacteria, especially in hot climates,[5][6] and especially in meat dishes that spoil more readily.[7] Angiosperms (
flowering plants) were the original source of most plant medicines.[8] Human settlements are often surrounded by weeds used as
herbal medicines, such as
nettle,
dandelion and
chickweed.[9][10] Humans were not alone in using herbs as medicines: some animals such as non-human
primates,
monarch butterflies and
sheep ingest medicinal plants when they are ill.[11] Plant samples from prehistoric burial sites are among the lines of evidence that Paleolithic peoples had knowledge of herbal medicine. For instance, a 60,000-year-old Neanderthal burial site, "
Shanidar IV", in northern Iraq has yielded large amounts of pollen from eight plant species, seven of which are used now as herbal remedies.[12] Also, a
mushroom was found in the personal effects of Ötzi the Iceman, whose body was frozen in the
Ötztal Alps for more than 5,000 years. The mushroom was probably used against
whipworm.[13]
The
Early Modern period saw the flourishing of illustrated
herbals across Europe, starting with the 1526 Grete Herball.
John Gerard wrote his famous The Herball or General History of Plants in 1597, based on
Rembert Dodoens, and
Nicholas Culpeper published his The English Physician Enlarged.[29]
Many new plant medicines arrived in Europe as products of
Early Modern exploration and the resulting
Columbian Exchange, in which livestock, crops and technologies were transferred between the Old World and the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries. Medicinal herbs arriving in the Americas included garlic, ginger, and turmeric; coffee, tobacco and coca travelled in the other direction.[30][31]
In Mexico, the sixteenth century Badianus Manuscript described medicinal plants available in Central America.[32]
The place of plants in medicine was radically altered in the 19th century by the application of
chemical analysis.
Alkaloids were isolated from a succession of medicinal plants, starting with
morphine from the
poppy in 1806, and soon followed by
ipecacuanha and
strychnos in 1817,
quinine from the
cinchona tree, and then many others. As chemistry progressed, additional classes of potentially active substances were discovered in plants. Commercial extraction of purified alkaloids including morphine began at
Merck in 1826.
Synthesis of a substance first discovered in a medicinal plant began with
salicylic acid in 1853. Around the end of the 19th century, the mood of pharmacy turned against medicinal plants, as
enzymes often modified the active ingredients when whole plants were dried, and alkaloids and glycosides purified from plant material started to be preferred. Drug discovery from plants continued to be important through the 20th century and into the 21st, with important anti-cancer drugs from
yew and
Madagascar periwinkle.[33][34][35]
Context
Medicinal plants are used with the intention of maintaining health, to be administered for a specific condition, or both, whether in
modern medicine or in
traditional medicine.[3][36] The
Food and Agriculture Organization estimated in 2002 that over 50,000 medicinal plants are used across the world.[37] The
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew more conservatively estimated in 2016 that 17,810 plant species have a medicinal use, out of some 30,000 plants for which a use of any kind is documented.[38]
In modern medicine, around a quarter[a] of the drugs prescribed to patients are derived from medicinal plants, and they are rigorously tested.[36][39] In other systems of medicine, medicinal plants may constitute the majority of what are often informal attempted treatments, not tested scientifically.[40] The
World Health Organization estimates, without reliable data, that some 80 percent of the world's population depends mainly on traditional medicine (including but not limited to plants); perhaps some two billion people are largely reliant on medicinal plants.[36][39] The use of plant-based materials including herbal or natural health products with supposed health benefits, is increasing in developed countries.[41] This brings attendant risks of toxicity and other effects on human health, despite the safe image of herbal remedies.[41] Herbal medicines have been in use since long before modern medicine existed; there was and often still is little or no knowledge of the pharmacological basis of their actions, if any, or of their safety. The World Health Organization formulated a policy on traditional medicine in 1991, and since then has published guidelines for them, with a series of monographs on widely used herbal medicines.[42][43]
Medicinal plants may provide three main kinds of benefit: health benefits to the people who consume them as medicines; financial benefits to people who harvest, process, and distribute them for sale; and society-wide benefits, such as job opportunities, taxation income, and a healthier labour force.[36] However, development of plants or extracts having potential medicinal uses is blunted by weak scientific evidence, poor practices in the process of
drug development, and insufficient financing.[3]
All plants produce chemical compounds which give them an
evolutionary advantage, such as
defending against herbivores or, in the example of
salicylic acid, as a
hormone in plant defenses.[44][45] These phytochemicals have potential for use as drugs, and the content and known pharmacological activity of these substances in medicinal plants is the scientific basis for their use in modern medicine, if scientifically confirmed.[3] For instance, daffodils (Narcissus) contain nine groups of alkaloids including
galantamine, licensed for use against
Alzheimer's disease. The alkaloids are bitter-tasting and toxic, and concentrated in the parts of the plant such as the stem most likely to be eaten by herbivores; they may also protect against
parasites.[46][47][48]
Modern knowledge of medicinal plants is being systematised in the Medicinal Plant Transcriptomics Database, which by 2011 provided a sequence reference for the
transcriptome of some thirty species.[49] Major classes of plant
phytochemicals are described below, with examples of plants that contain them.[8][43][50][51][52]
The
foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, contains
digoxin, a
cardiac glycoside. The plant was used on heart conditions long before the glycoside was identified.[44][63]
Polyphenols of several classes are widespread in plants, having diverse roles in defenses against plant diseases and predators.[44] They include hormone-mimicking
phytoestrogens and astringent
tannins.[52][64] Plants containing phytoestrogens have been administered for centuries for
gynecological disorders, such as fertility, menstrual, and menopausal problems.[65] Among these plants are Pueraria mirifica,[66]kudzu,[67]angelica,[68]fennel, and
anise.[69]
Medicinal plants demand intensive management. Different species each require their own distinct conditions of cultivation. The
World Health Organization recommends the use of
rotation to minimise problems with pests and plant diseases. Cultivation may be traditional or may make use of
conservation agriculture practices to maintain organic matter in the soil and to conserve water, for example with
no-till farming systems.[77] In many medicinal and aromatic plants, plant characteristics vary widely with soil type and cropping strategy, so care is required to obtain satisfactory yields.[78]
Preparation
Medicinal plants are often tough and fibrous, requiring some form of preparation to make them convenient to administer. According to the Institute for Traditional Medicine, common methods for the preparation of herbal medicines include
decoction, powdering, and extraction with alcohol, in each case yielding a mixture of substances. Decoction involves crushing and then boiling the plant material in water to produce a liquid extract that can be taken orally or applied topically.[79] Powdering involves drying the plant material and then crushing it to yield a powder that can be compressed into
tablets. Alcohol extraction involves soaking the plant material in cold wine or distilled spirit to form a
tincture.[80]
Traditional
poultices were made by boiling medicinal plants, wrapping them in a cloth, and applying the resulting parcel externally to the affected part of the body.[81]
When modern medicine has identified a drug in a medicinal plant, commercial quantities of the drug may either be
synthesised or extracted from plant material, yielding a pure chemical.[33] Extraction can be practical when the compound in question is complex.[82]
Plant medicines are in wide use around the world.[83] In most of the developing world, especially in rural areas, local
traditional medicine, including herbalism, is the only source of health care for people, while in the
developed world,
alternative medicine including use of
dietary supplements is marketed aggressively using the claims of traditional medicine. As of 2015, most products made from medicinal plants had not been tested for their safety and efficacy, and products that were marketed in developed economies and provided in the undeveloped world by traditional healers were of uneven quality, sometimes containing dangerous contaminants.[84]Traditional Chinese medicine makes use of a wide variety of plants, among other materials and techniques.[85] Researchers from
Kew Gardens found 104 species used for
diabetes in Central America, of which seven had been identified in at least three separate studies.[86][87] The
Yanomami of the Brazilian Amazon, assisted by researchers, have described 101 plant species used for traditional medicines.[88][89]
Drugs derived from plants including opiates, cocaine and cannabis have both medical and
recreational uses. Different countries have at various times made
use of illegal drugs, partly on the basis of the risks involved in taking
psychoactive drugs.[90]
Effectiveness
Plant medicines have often not been tested systematically, but have come into use informally over the centuries. By 2007, clinical trials had demonstrated potentially useful activity in nearly 16% of herbal extracts; there was limited in vitro or in vivo evidence for roughly half the extracts; there was only phytochemical evidence for around 20%; 0.5% were allergenic or toxic; and some 12% had basically never been studied scientifically.[43] Cancer Research UK caution that there is no reliable evidence for the effectiveness of herbal remedies for cancer.[91]
A 2012
phylogenetic study built a family tree down to
genus level using 20,000 species to compare the medicinal plants of three regions, Nepal, New Zealand and the Cape of South Africa. It discovered that the species used traditionally to treat the same types of condition belonged to the same groups of plants in all three regions, giving a "strong phylogenetic signal".[92] Since many plants that yield pharmaceutical drugs belong to just these groups, and the groups were independently used in three different world regions, the results were taken to mean 1) that these plant groups do have potential for medicinal efficacy, 2) that undefined pharmacological activity is associated with use in traditional medicine, and 3) that the use of a phylogenetic groups for possible plant medicines in one region may predict their use in the other regions.[92]
Regulation
The World Health Organization (WHO) has been coordinating a network called the International Regulatory Cooperation for Herbal Medicines to try to improve the quality of medical products made from medicinal plants and the claims made for them.[93] In 2015, only around 20% of countries had well-functioning regulatory agencies, while 30% had none, and around half had limited regulatory capacity.[84] In India, where
Ayurveda has been practised for centuries, herbal remedies are the responsibility of a government department,
AYUSH, under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.[94]
WHO has set out a strategy for traditional medicines[95] with four objectives: to integrate them as policy into national healthcare systems; to provide knowledge and guidance on their safety, efficacy, and quality; to increase their availability and affordability; and to promote their rational, therapeutically sound usage.[95] WHO notes in the strategy that countries are experiencing seven challenges to such implementation, namely in developing and enforcing policy; in integration; in safety and quality, especially in assessment of products and qualification of practitioners; in controlling advertising; in research and development; in education and training; and in the sharing of information.[95]
The pharmaceutical industry has remained interested in mining traditional uses of medicinal plants in its drug discovery efforts.[33] Of the 1073 small-molecule drugs approved in the period 1981 to 2010, over half were either directly derived from or inspired by natural substances.[33][102] Among cancer treatments, of 185 small-molecule drugs approved in the period from 1981 to 2019, 65% were derived from or inspired by natural substances.[103]
Plant medicines can cause adverse effects and even death, whether by side-effects of their active substances, by adulteration or contamination, by overdose, or by inappropriate prescription. Many such effects are known, while others remain to be explored scientifically. There is no reason to presume that because a product comes from nature it must be safe: the existence of powerful natural poisons like atropine and nicotine shows this to be untrue. Further, the high standards applied to conventional medicines do not always apply to plant medicines, and dose can vary widely depending on the growth conditions of plants: older plants may be much more toxic than young ones, for instance.[105][106][107][108][109][110]
Plant extracts may interact with conventional drugs, both because they may provide an increased dose of similar compounds, and because some phytochemicals interfere with the body's systems that metabolise drugs in the liver including the
cytochrome P450 system, making the drugs last longer in the body and have a cumulative effect.[111] Plant medicines can be dangerous during pregnancy.[112] Since plants may contain many different substances, plant extracts may have complex effects on the human body.[5]
Quality, advertising, and labelling
Herbal medicine and
dietary supplement products have been criticized as not having sufficient standards or scientific evidence to confirm their contents, safety, and presumed efficacy.[113][114][115][116] A 2013 study found that one-third of herbal products sampled contained no trace of the herb listed on the label, and other products were
adulterated with unlisted
fillers including potential
allergens.[117][118] Companies often make false claims about their herbal products promising health benefits that aren't backed by evidence to generate more sales. The market for dietary supplements and nutraceuticals grew by 5% during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to the United States taking action to stop the deceptive marketing of herbal products to combat the virus.[119][120]
Threats
Where medicinal plants are harvested from the wild rather than cultivated, they are subject to both general and specific threats. General threats include
climate change and
habitat loss to development and agriculture. A specific threat is over-collection to meet rising demand for medicines.[121] A case in point was the pressure on wild populations of the Pacific yew soon after news of taxol's effectiveness became public.[33] The threat from over-collection could be addressed by cultivation of some medicinal plants, or by a system of certification to make wild harvesting sustainable.[121] A report in 2020 by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew identifies 723 medicinal plants as being at risk of extinction, caused partly by over-collection.[122][103]
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