BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS IN PHYTOMEDICINE Edited by Iraj Rasooli Bioactive Compounds in Phytomedicine Edited by Iraj Rasooli Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2011 InTech All chapters are Open Access distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. 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DepositPhotos First published December, 2011 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from orders@intechweb.org Bioactive Compounds in Phytomedicine, Edited by Iraj Rasooli p. cm. ISBN 978-953-307-805-2 free online editions of InTech Books and Journals can be found at www.intechopen.com Contents Preface IX Part 1 Herbal Therapy 1 Chapter 1 Selecting Medicinal Plants for Development of Phytomedicine and Use in Primary Health Care 3 Wagner Luiz Ramos Barbosa, Myrth Soares do Nascimento, Lucianna do Nascimento Pinto, Fernando Luiz Costa Maia, Antonio Jorge Ataíde Sousa, José Otávio Carréra Silva Júnior, Maurícia Melo Monteiro and Danilo Ribeiro de Oliveira Chapter 2 Hepatoprotective Effect of Zanthoxylum armatum DC 25 Nitin Verma and Rattan Lal Khosa Chapter 3 Current Status: Mexican Medicinal Plants with Insecticidal Potential 39 Ludmila Elisa Guzmán-Pantoja, Laura P. Lina-García, Graciela Bustos-Zagal and Víctor M. Hernández-Velázquez Part 2 Phytochemicals and Bioactive Compounds 67 Chapter 4 Standardization of Herbal Drugs Derivatives with Special Reference to Brazilian Regulations 69 Wagner Luiz Ramos Barbosa, Lucianna do Nascimento Pinto, Luiz Cláudio Silva Malheiros, Patricia Miriam Sayuri Sato Barros, Christian Barbosa de Freitas, Jose Otavio Carrera Silva Junior, Sandra Gallori and Franco Francesco Vincieri Chapter 5 The Phytochemical and In Vitro Pharmacological Testing of Maltese Medicinal Plants 93 Everaldo Attard and Pierpaolo Pacioni Chapter 6 Phytochemicals Components as Bioactive Foods 113 Aicha Olfa Cherif VI Contents Chapter 7 Diosgenin, a Steroid Saponin Constituent of Yams and Fenugreek: Emerging Evidence for Applications in Medicine 125 Jayadev Raju and Chinthalapally V. Rao Chapter 8 Polyphenols as Adaptogens – The Real Mechanism of the Antioxidant Effect? 143 David E. Stevenson Chapter 9 Erythrina, a Potential Source of Chemicals from the Neotropics 163 R. Marcos Soto-Hernández, Rosario García-Mateos, Rubén San Miguel-Chávez, Geoffrey Kite, Mariano Martínez-Vázquez and Ana C. Ramos-Valdivia Chapter 10 Zanthoxylum Genus as Potential Source of Bioactive Compounds 185 L. Oscar Javier Patiño, R. Juliet Angélica Prieto and S. Luis Enrique Cuca Preface Individuals are increasingly taking personal responsibility over their health, both in the prevention and treatment of disease. This is particularly true for a wide variety of chronic or incurable diseases such as cancer, diabetes, arthritis or acute illnesses readily treated at home like common cold. During the last fifty years the practice of herbalism has become mainstream throughout the world. This is due in part to the recognition of the value of traditional medical systems, particularly of Asian origin, and the identification of medicinal plants from indigenous pharmacopeias that have been shown to have significant healing power, either in their natural state or as the source of new pharmaceuticals. When mixtures of several crude extracts are used in formulations, enhancement of the beneficial effects or greater toxicity is expected through either synergistic amplification or diminishment of possible adverse side effects. It is also presumed that their combination could prevent the gradual decline in efficacy that is frequently observed when single drugs are given over long periods of time. Nowadays such remedies can still be found in ethnic and health food stores, but are also available in pharmacies and grocery stores. Unfortunately there is no universal regulatory system that ensures that these remedies are what they say they are, do what is claimed, or most importantly, are safe. Many patients with chronic allergic conditions seek complementary and alternative medicine therapies. This trend has begun to attract interest from mainstream health care providers and scientific investigators and has stimulated government agencies to provide support and guidance for the scientific investigation of complementary and alternative medicine. This effort may lead to improved therapies and better health care/patient outcomes. This book presents an update on the most promising herbal remedies. The objectives of this book were to determine the bioactivities of herbal medicines by giving some examples of recent research outputs. Results of this study are aimed toward helping avoid potential drug-herb interactions; helping decision makers to decide on the proper policies in the medical and the non-medical fields concerning herbal remedies and other types of complementary and alternative medicine. Prof. Iraj Rasooli Department of Biology, Shahed University, Tehran-Qom Express way, Iran [...]... consists in identifying groups of chemicals present in plants, considering the taxonomic organization of these plants To illustrate this topic, consider the use of a plant species containing antiplasmodic indol derivatives as active principle in the development of an antimalarial phytomedicine Would a plant species from a different genus, containing such substances, give origin to the same phytomedicine? ... products in their practices to survive and handle the environment According to Guirado and Cuellar (2008) the ethnomedical 12 Bioactive Compounds in Phytomedicine approach consists in investigating the plant species on the basis of traditional use by different peoples, providing an interface between modern clinical medicine and folk medicine 2.4 Ethnopharmacy The strategy that can gather more information... with acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activity in several species of other genera of Amaryllidaceae family, especially Narcisus, obtaining excellent results 8 Bioactive Compounds in Phytomedicine Considering that in this case we deal with the selection of plant species for the development of herbal medicines or for direct use in primary health care, this feature of the method, enabling the discovery... design actions in the Pharmaceutical Sciences area, both from a technological standpoint as for healthcare, since it allows to obtain information about infectious diseases, the appropriate medicinal plants indicated for their treatment and it infers the most suitable methods for their preparation and use (PINTO, 2008) In Brazil, Ethnopharmacy is defined as an interdisciplinary science that investigates... sector is still lacking, which, in Brazil, needs to adequate its action and thought to the national sanitary surveillance rules in order to contribute in building this important economic and social sector that is the market for herbal medicines 14 Bioactive Compounds in Phytomedicine Fig 2 Representative diagram of the interdisciplinarity of Ethnopharmacy Fig 3 Meeting of researchers in Ethnopharmacy... medicine, encouraged by official policies of distribution of these drugs without proper pharmaceutical care, has led, even in 16 Bioactive Compounds in Phytomedicine communities with ancient traditions, such as indigenous peoples, a depreciation of the traditional healing practices, so that the only alternative that remains to the ordinary member of the community is to ingest the industrial drug according... Pirarucu Catinga de Mulata RAUPF 100% 100% 88% 79% 75% 70% 67% 50% 42% Source: from Pinto, 2008, (yet unpublished data) Table 1 The alleged medicinal uses of plants according to the relative frequency of alleged use (RFAU) calculated according to Amorozo & Gely (1988) Selecting Medicinal Plants for Development of Phytomedicine and Use in Primary Health Care 17 Combining these symptoms and adding information... trigger initiatives 20 Bioactive Compounds in Phytomedicine Applying new methods for development; the partnership of the academy in the development of phytomedicines, required due to the low participation of the pharmaceutical productive sector in this process, induces the application of modern techniques, as the academy, apart from contributing to the process still needs to produce knowledge in accordance... efforts of research that prove, scientifically, the medicinal properties of plants, and the need for restructuring the health care system, including the preparation of professionals working in this area (NUNES et al., 2003) The recovery and revaluation of the use of medicinal herbs in Brazil today are demanding a certain worry since many medicinal plants of high value may disappear from the forests... pharmaceutical ingredients and the final product, and with these data to establish their quality control process This step of the process is determining for the registration of an herbal medicine in Brazil 2 The ethnoguided approach The ethnoguided approach consists of selecting plant species in accordance to the indication of specific population groups in certain contexts of use, emphasizing the search . BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS IN PHYTOMEDICINE Edited by Iraj Rasooli Bioactive Compounds in Phytomedicine Edited by Iraj Rasooli Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9,. Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from orders@intechweb.org Bioactive Compounds in Phytomedicine, . period, Selecting Medicinal Plants for Development of Phytomedicine and Use in Primary Health Care 9 Fig. 1. Schematic sequence of the steps in developing phytomedicines, starting from an