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The traditional use of southern African medicinal plants for the treatment of bacterial respiratory diseases: A review of the ethnobotany and scientific evaluations.

ABSTRACT: ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE:Multiple plant species were used traditionally in southern Africa to treat bacterial respiratory diseases. This review summarises this usage and highlights plant species that are yet to be verified for these activities. AIM OF THE STUDY:This manuscript reviews the traditional usage of southern African plant species to treat bacterial respiratory diseases with the aim of highlighting gaps in the literature and focusing future studies. MATERIALS AND METHODS:An extensive review of ethnobotanical books, reviews and primary scientific studies was undertaken to identify southern African plants which are used in traditional southern African medicine to treat bacterial respiratory diseases. We also searched for southern African plants whose inhibitory activity against bacterial respiratory pathogens has been conmfirmed, to highlight gaps in the literature and focus future studies. RESULTS:One hundred and eighty-seven southern African plant species are recorded as traditional therapies for bacterial respiratory infections. Scientific evaluations of 178 plant species were recorded, although only 42 of these were selected for screening on the basis of their ethnobotanical uses. Therefore, the potential of 146 species used teraditionally to treat bacterial respiratory diseases are yet to be verified. CONCLUSIONS:The inhibitory properties of southern African medicinal plants against bacterial respiratory pathogens is relatively poorly explored and the antibacterial activity of most plant species remains to be verified.

SUBMITTER: Cock IE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7383173 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The traditional use of southern African medicinal plants for the treatment of bacterial respiratory diseases: A review of the ethnobotany and scientific evaluations.

Cock Ian E IE Van Vuuren Sandy F SF

Journal of ethnopharmacology 20200727

<h4>Ethnopharmacological relevance</h4>Multiple plant species were used traditionally in southern Africa to treat bacterial respiratory diseases. This review summarises this usage and highlights plant species that are yet to be verified for these activities.<h4>Aim of the study</h4>This manuscript reviews the traditional usage of southern African plant species to treat bacterial respiratory diseases with the aim of highlighting gaps in the literature and focusing future studies.<h4>Materials and ...[more]

PMID: 32730881

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Project description:Ethnopharmacological relevanceViral respiratory infections are amongst the most common infections globally, with most of the world's population contracting at least one infection annually. Numerous plant species are used in traditional southern African healing systems to treat these diseases and to alleviate the symptoms. Despite this, the therapeutic potential of these plants against viral respiratory diseases remains poorly explored.Aim of the studyThe aim of this study was to document the southern African plant species used in traditional medicine to treat viral respiratory infections. We also examined the extent of scientific evaluations of southern African plant species against the respiratory-infective viruses, with the aim of stimulating interest in this area and focusing on future studies.Materials and methodsWe undertook an extensive review of ethnobotanical books, reviews and primary scientific studies to identify southern African plants which are used in traditional southern African medicine to treat viral respiratory diseases. This information was used to identify gaps in the current research that require further study.ResultsTwo hundred and fifty-seven southern African plant species were identified as traditional therapies for viral respiratory diseases. Surprisingly, only one of those species (as well as twenty-one other species not recorded for these purposes) has been evaluated for the ability to block respiratory virus production. Furthermore, most of these studies screened against a single viral strain and none of those studies examined the mechanism of action of the plant preparations.ConclusionsDespite well documented records of the use of southern African plants to treat respiratory viral diseases, the field is poorly explored. Nearly all of the plant species used in traditional healing systems to treat these diseases are yet to be tested. Substantial further work is required to verify the efficacy of these traditional medicines.

Project description:An extensive study has been made to identify, document, and investigate the ethnomedicinal plants used by Rakhine ethnic minorities in Patuakhali and Barguna District of southern Bangladesh for the term of April 2018 to June 2019. In this article, we have focused on the Rakhine population trends, management concerns, and some actions for conserving the Rakhine population diversity in the study area. In this study, we have identified the locations where Rakhine population lives in Patuakhali and Barguna districts. A total of 86 plant species belonging to 71 genera and 43 families were reported to be used for treating more than 57 various physical ailments under 14 illness categories from the study area. For each of the species, the botanic name, common name, Rakhine name, family, habit, parts used and traditional medicinal uses of the plant species have been presented. The maximum numbers of ethnomedicinal plant species were utilized to treat gastrointestinal complaints (43) taken after by the treatment of dermatological issues (36). The highly cited (75.60%) plant species were found to be Ananas comosus and Aegle marmelos used for gastro-intestinal (Stomach pain, indigestion, and dysentery) digestive disorders and subsequently followed by Colocasia esculenta (70.73%) used for cut, bleeding and wound healing. The results of this study have shown that Rakhine indigenous communities still depend on conventional plant-based medication to remedy various diseases and therapeutic purposes in the study area. Our findings have also shown that despite there have adequate phytodiversity in the natural habitat of the study area but the number of Rakhine population has been declining significantly day-by-day. As an ultimate result, we have lost the plant-based traditional medicinal knowledge of Rakhine indigenous communities in Bangladesh. As a rich source of traditional knowledge and cultural diversity, it calls for urgent initiatives to conserve the cultural heritage of the Rakhine community as well as the diversity of Rakhine ethnic group.

Project description:Objective:Many studies on the treatment of tuberculosis (TB) using herbal medicines have been undertaken in recent decades in East Africa. The details, however, are highly fragmented. The purpose of this study was to provide a comprehensive overview of the reported medicinal plants used to manage TB symptoms, and to analyze scientific reports on their effectiveness and safety. Method:A comprehensive literature search was performed in the major electronic databases regarding medicinal plants used in the management of TB in East Africa. A total of 44 reports were retrieved, and data were collected on various aspects of the medicinal plants such as botanical name, family, local names, part(s) used, method of preparation, efficacy, toxicity, and phytochemistry. The data were summarized into percentages and frequencies which were presented as tables and graphs. Results:A total of 195 species of plants belonging to 68 families and 144 genera were identified. Most encountered species were from Fabaceae (42.6%), Lamiaceae (19.1%), Asteraceae (16.2%), and Euphorbiaceae (14.7%) families. Only 36 medicinal plants (18.5%) have been screened for antimycobacterial activity. Out of these, 31 (86.1%) were reported to be bioactive with minimum inhibitory concentrations ranging from 47 to 12,500??g/ml. Most tested plant extracts were found to have acceptable acute toxicity profiles with cytotoxic concentrations on normal mammalian cells greater than 200??g/ml. The most commonly reported phytochemicals were flavonoids, terpenoids, alkaloids, saponins, cardiac glycosides, and phenols. Only Tetradenia riparia, Warburgia ugandensis, and Zanthoxylum leprieurii have further undergone isolation and characterization of the pure bioactive compounds. Conclusion:East Africa has a rich diversity of medicinal plants that have been reported to be effective in the management of symptoms of TB. More validation studies are required to promote the discovery of antimycobacterial drugs and to provide evidence for standardization of herbal medicine use.

Project description:This study documents information on significant ethnomedicinal plants, which was collected from the traditional healers of three indigenous communities of Bangladesh. The documented data were quantitatively analyzed for the first time in this area. The information was obtained through open-ended, semi-structured questionnaires. The benefits, importance and coverage of ethnomedicine were expressed through several quantitative indices including Informant Consensus Factor (ICF), Use Value (UV), Frequency of Citation (FC), Relative Frequency of Citation (RFC) and Relative Importance Index (RI). The agreement of homogeneity between the present and previous studies and among the indigenous communities was evaluated using the Jaccard Index (JI). A total of 159 ethnomedicinal plant species, which were distributed in 132 genera under 62 families, were documented from 174 informants. Of these, 128 plants were native and 31 were exotic. Of a majority of documented species, herbs and leaves were the most utilized plant parts for the preparation of ethnomedicines (45.28%) whereas pastes (63.03%) were the most popular formulations. Among the documented species, the dominant families were the Asteraceae (14 species) and the Lamiaceae (12 species). The highest ICF value was 0.77 for digestive system disorders. Based on UVs, the five most commonly used ethnomedicinal plant species in the study area were Duabanga grandiflora (0.43), Zingiber officinale (0.41), Congea tomentosa (0.40), Matricaria chamomilla (0.33) and Engelhardtia spicata (0.28). The highest RFC was recorded for Rauvolfia serpentina (0.25). The highest RI value was calculated for both Scoparia dulcis and Leucas aspera (0.83). Importantly, 16 species were reported with new therapeutic uses and to our knowledge, 7 species described herein have never been ethnobotanically and pharmacologically studied, viz: Agastache urticifolia, Asarum cordifolium, C. tomentosa, E. spicata, Hypserpa nitida, Merremia vitifolia and Smilax odoratissima. The present study showed that traditional treatment using medicinal plants is still widespread in the study area. Documentation of new ethnomedicinal species with their therapeutic uses shall promote further phytochemical and pharmacological investigations and possibly, lead to the development of new drugs.

Project description:BackgroundAfrican Traditional Medicine (ATM) is used for the healthcare of about 80% of the rural populations of the continent of Africa. The practices of ATM make use of plant-products, which are known to contain plant-based secondary metabolites or natural products (NPs), likely to play key roles in drug discovery, particularly as lead compounds. For various reasons, including resistance of strains of Plasmodium to known anti-malarial drugs, local African populations often resort to plant-based treatments and/or a combination of this and standard anti-malarial regimens. Emphasis has been laid in this review to present the anti-malarial virtue of the most recently published phytochemicals or natural products, which have been tested by in vitro and in vivo assays.MethodsThe data was based on the current version of the African Compound Libraries, which are constantly being updated based on inputs from journal articles and student theses (M.Sc/Ph.D) from African University libraries. Emphasis was laid on data published after 2012. In order to carry out the original data collection, currently being included in the African Compounds Database, individual journal websites were queried using the country names in Africa as search terms. Over 40,000 articles "hits" were originally retrieved, then reduced to about 9000 articles. The retained articles/theses was further queried with the search terms "malaria", "malarial", "plasmodium", "plasmodial" and a combination of them, resulting in over 500 articles. Those including compounds with anti-malarial activities for which the measured activities fell within the established cut off values numbered 55, which were all cited in the review as relevant references.Results and discussionPure compounds derived from African medicinal plants with demonstrated anti-malarial/antiplasmodial properties with activities ranging from "very active" to "weakly active" have been discussed. The majority of the 187 natural products were terpenoids (30%), followed by flavonoids (22%), alkaloids (19%) and quinones (15%), with each of the other compound classes being less than 5% of the entire compound collection. It was also observed that most of the plant species from which the compounds were identified were of the families Rubiaceae, Meliaceae and Asphodelaceae. The review is intended to continue laying the groundwork for an African-based anti-malarial drug discovery project.

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The traditional use of southern African medicinal plants for the treatment of bacterial respiratory diseases: A review of the ethnobotany and scientific evaluations.

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The traditional use of southern African medicinal plants for the treatment of bacterial respiratory diseases: A review of the ethnobotany and scientific evaluations.

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