Hypotensive mistletoe

Mistletoe has hypotensive, cardiac-depressant, and sedative properties. Traditionally, it is used for high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis, nervous tachycardia, hypertensive headache, chorea, and hysteria. 

Phenethylamine is one of the constituents of the extract of mistletoe Viscum album L.). Barger and Dale (176) were the first to describe the hypertensive and apparently sympathomimetic effects observed following injection into the animal. Bry (173) described the stimulating properties of the /3-phenethylamine. Small doses (0.2-1.0 mg. intravenously) administered to the cat are hypertensive, but large doses (20-125 mg.) provoke a hypotension due to a depression of the myocardium (176a). Barbour... 

Studies completed in the early 1900s indicated that injections of American mistletoe produced a hypertensive effect (Crawford 1911 Wood and LaWall 1926). An ethnobotanical text reports use of American mistletoe as a hypotensive (Moerman 1998). 

Known plant toxins are 1. the homologous viscotoxins (Af, 4,840 46 amino acid residues of known sequence 3 disulfide bridges) from leaves and branches of the European mistletoe, which have hypotensive activity and cause a slowing of the heart beat 2. the toxalbumins Ricin (see) and abrin, which inhibit protein biosynthesis. 

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