Medicinal Plants - History and Clinical Tests

Medicinal Plants - History

Since prehistoric times, spices were originally used as food seasonings, but slowly is known to have a variety of benefits. Particularly spices have antimicrobial capability so as to preserve food. This method is expected to begin in the tropical regions where food can not be preserved because of climatic factors. In contrast to temperate regions have winter so that the food can be preserved in low temperature. The meat in general in various cultures spiced more than vegetables because meat is more easily damaged.

Medicinal Plants - History and Clinical Tests

Various archaeological evidence found that humans use medicinal plants at least since the Paleolithic era, about 60 thousand years ago. However expected it to happen earlier, because primates are still alive today have used a variety of specific leaves to cure certain diseases. Collected plant samples from the site of prehistoric Neanderthal cave Shandiar in Iran discovered a large amount of pollen from eight species of plants, with seven of them are still in use today as an herbal treatment.

In written history, at least the studies on the herb leaves have been conducted since 5000 years ago in Sumeria, and written on clay tablets that lists hundreds of medicinal plants. In the year 1500 BC the ancient Egyptians wrote Eber Papyrus which contains more than 800 medicinal plants, including garlic and marijuana. In India, Ayurvedic medicine has used a variety of medicinal plants since 1900 BC. Emperor of China Shennong is said to have written at least 365 medicinal plants and their use, including marijuana and ephedra (which became the origin of the word name of the drug ephedrine). In Ancient Greece, at least the herbs have been studied since the 3rd century BC by Diocles of Carystus, but most contents similar to those found in Egypt.

Medicinal Plants - Clinical Tests

Various herb leaves have positive effects when tested in vitro, in animals, and small-scale clinical trials, but not as rare as some herbs have a negative effect.

In 2002, the National Institutes of Health began to fund clinical trials of the effectiveness of herbal medicines. Survey in 2010 to 1000 species of plants, 356 of which already have the results of clinical trials on pharmacological benefits. About 12 percent said "no significant benefit" although already available on the market. And according to Cancer Research UK, none of the herbal treatment clinically proven to prevent or treat cancer. A variety of herbal medicine experts criticized the study scientific towards herbal medicines because they do not incorporate the historical knowledge that can provide information about the optimal dose, species detail, harvesting time, and the target population of potential recipients.

Medicinal Plants and Herbs

Medicinal plants are plants that have been identified and are known by human observation has a compound useful for preventing and curing diseases, perform specific biological functions, to prevent attacks of insects and fungi. At least 12 thousand compounds have been isolated from a variety of medicinal plants in the world, but the number is only ten percent of the total amount of compounds that can be extracted from the whole plant medicinal.

Medicinal Plants

The use of plants as medicine has been around since prehistoric times humans. In 2001, researchers have identified 122 compounds used in modern medicine is derived from plant compounds that have been used since prehistoric times. So many drugs available today is derived from the herbal medicine, such as aspirin made of willow wood, also digitalis, quinine, and opium.

WHO estimates that 80 percent of people in Asia and Africa utilizing herbal medicine for some aspect of health care. United States and Europe have less dependency, but showed an increasing trend since the effectiveness of some medicinal plants have been scientifically tested and publicized. In 2011, a total of medicinal plants are traded around the world reached a value of over 2.2 billion USD.

With the resources derived from plants, the biological richness of a country such as forests become important, and forest degradation threaten the existence of medicinal plant ever and is currently utilized by the indigenous inhabitants and the surrounding forest area. The biodiversity in forests important than as a means of conserving species of medicinal plants to humans, also can be a source of emergency medicine for rare animals in nature reserves. Useful plant needs to be identified and investigated further, and conservation experts or rangers need to be trained to use the medicinal plants. Knowledge of the use of medicinal plants in the forest can be extracted from the local community based on their experience handed down from generation to generation. Tribal Tugutil National Park Aketajawe Lolobata, Halmahera, have knowledge of at least 116 local plant species, with 71 species used as food plants and 45 species used as medicinal plants.