Medicinal Plants: Urogenital and Gastrointestinal System Flashcards
What is a sapogenins?
A plant species that produces steroidal glycosides that consists of a steroid-like terpenoid with a sugar side chain.
-Removal of side chain in question?
Who discovered that removal of side chain was possible?
Russel Marker
What does the removal of the side chain from sapogenins do?
Converts sapogenins from rhizomes of wild sarsaparilla, and understory vine native to eastern NA, to the steroidal hormone progesterone.
What is progesterone converted into?
Testosterone, oestrogen, and other steroidal hormones.
What are the two related plant families of sarsaparilla rhizomes?
Lilies and yams-apparently produce large amounts of sapogenins.
Where do a number of yam species exist?
Mexico.
What did the sapogenin rich tubers of Mexico contain?
Diosgenin, yielding progesterone.
Which company did Marker found?
Syntex. But left to found Botanica-Mex due to disputes over profits.
What did Syntex develop through research program?
Developed an efficient method for the productions of cortisone and progesterone mimic norethindrone.
What was important about norethindrone?
It became the active principle in the world’s first birth control pill.
What were yam tubers used to produce in 1973?
550 tons of diosgenin.
What was another important steroid precursor?
Stigmasterol from soybeans.
Where does semi-synthesis from diosgenin remain important?
India and China.
What does progesterone prevent?
Ovulation.
What are cortisones used to treat?
Skin rashes, contact dermatitis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, and asthma.
What is the saw palmetto and where is it native to?
A small palm species, native to the southeastern U.S.-Florida.
What was the saw palmetto fruit used for?
Used medicinally by indigenous groups in Florida to treat bladder and urinary infections, and the edible seeds were harvest as food.
What was it used for in the 20th century?
Used in American folk medicine to treat prostate enlargement.
How did Germany see saw palmetto as an effective treatment?
A fat soluble extract of the fruit containing fatty acids and sterols did in fact treat prostate enlargement (BPH).
What does BPH cause?
Obstruction of the bladder neck and urethra, resulting in symptoms that include excessive urination and general discomfort.
Where is BPH used most?
Europe. However, recent trials say it works no better than a placebo.
GASTROINTESTINAL SYSTEM:
What are two closely related species of Senna?
S. angusifolia and S.alexandrina.
Where is S. angusifolia native to?
Arabian peninsula, west Africa and Asia.
Where is S. alexandria native to?
Northeastern Africa, cultivated in Sundan, China, and India.
What are each of these Senna species?
Small leguminous shrubs that thrive in hot, desert like habitats.
What did the Arab physician (Serapion the Younger) recommend Senna for?
An effective purgative and laxative.
How do you produce the Senna laxative?
Senna leaflets and mature pods are drive and powdered/
When was Senna introduced to Europe?
1000 years ago by Arab traders.
Prior to plantations, where did Senna come from?
Wild plants harvested in Africa and Arabia.
Where were natural Senna laxatives replaced by less expensive synthetic drugs, particularly in North America?
Beginning in the 1950s.
What happened when synthetic phenolphthalein was banned by FDA in 1997 due to the potentiality of it being a carcinogen?
Sennoside A nad B which are enzymatically hydrolyzed by gut bacteria to form laxatives (active principles of Senna), were used instead.
This large demand after the phenolphthalein ban resulted in what?
Plantation establishment in Africa and Asia.
What is the Cascara?
A small deciduous tree, native to western NA, from south BC to California and east to Montana.
What was the inner bark of Cascara used for?
Used by indigenous groups in west NA as a strong laxative-purgative.
Where is the bark from?
Peeled from trees felled in the spring and early summer.
When was cascara bark first marketed as a commercial laxative?
1877.
Species extirpated by 1920s from California and Michigan companies due to un-sustainability of wild trees, where was cascara bark obtained from 1940s onwards?
Plantations established in Oregon, Washington and some New England states.
What is the active compound of Cascara?
Cascaroside A and B, which are enzymatically hydrolyzed by gut bacteria to form the putative emodin.
When did the FDA ban cascara as extracts were not generally rezoned as safe and effective?
November 2002.
Why was this banning of cascara first administered?
Preliminary data suggesting carcinogenic effects.
What is another something something banned like cascara?
Eurasian buckthorns-contained cascarosides and emotion.
What is ipecac?
A low shrub that occurs as an understory plant in the moist, shady woodlands of the Brazilian highlands and eastern Bolivia.
What is a related species of ipecac?
P. acuminata, which occurs in Colombia.
What did indigenous people use the bark of the thickened fibrous roots for?
To treat intestinal infections-dysentery.
Where did samples of powdered ipecac root first appear?
France in 1672.
Who was the person who popularized ipecac root as a cure for dysentery?
Helvetius.
What did Thomas Dover develop?
Dover’s powder, made of a mixture of ipecac, opium, and other substances sold as a treatment for fever, gout and dysentery.
What else was ipecac used for?
Emetic (induces vomiting), administered to children as a purgative agent.
Moderate dosages are used to induce perspiration and as an expectorant in treating bronchitis, and small does as a digestive stimulant.
What are the active principles of ipecac?
The alkaloids emetine and cephaeline.
What is ipecac an effective treatment for?
Amoebic dysentery (amoebiasis), but its powerful emetic properties (vomiting and diarrhoea), limit its use.
What negative effects does ipecac posses?
May cause inflammation of the peripheral nerves, irregular heartbeat, sudden lowering of blood pressure, an death in extreme cases.
Where were safer and effective treatments for amoebic dysentery developed?
1960s.
Ipecac use in everyday life?
Vomiting from poison, safer methods now. Also used in aversion therapy, particularly in treating chronic alcoholism.
