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The Role of Herbal Medicines in Health Care

Natural products have served as a major source of drugs for centuries, and about half of the pharmaceuticals in use today are derived from natural products. Quinine, theophylline, penicillin G, morphine, paclitaxel, digoxin, vincristine, doxorubicin, cyclosporin, and vitamin A all share two important characteristics they are cornerstones of modem pharmaceutical care, and they are all natural products. The use of natural substances, particularly plants, to control diseases is a centuries-old practice that has led to the discovery of more than half of all modem pharmaceuticals. [Pg.49]

Documentation of the use of natural substances for medicinal purposes can be found as far back as 78 a.d., when Dioscorides wrote De Materia Medica, describing thousands of medicinal plants. This treatise included descriptions of many medicinal plants that remain important in modem medicine today, not because they continue to be used as crude drag preparations, but because they serve as the source of important pure chemicals that have become mainstays of modem therapy. A few examples will be cited here. [Pg.49]

The positive benefits of extracts of two species of Digitalis purpurea (foxglove and lanata) were recognized long before the active constituents were isolated and structurally characterized. The cardiac glycosides, which include digoxin, digitoxin, and deslanoside, exert a powerful and selective positive inotropic action on the cardiac muscle (see Chapter 35). [Pg.49]

A frequently cited example of an important natural-product-derived drag is the neuromuscular blocker d-tubocurarine, derived from the South American plant curare, which was used by South American Indians as an arrow poison (see Chapter 26). Tubocurarine led to the development of decamethonium, which, although structurally dissimilar to tubocurarine, was nevertheless synthesized based on the then prevalent presumption that tubocurarine contained two quaternary nitrogens. Similarly, synthetic local anesthetics, such as lidocaine, benzocaine, and dibucaine, were synthesized to mimic the nerve-blocking effect of cocaine, a natural alkaloid obtained from the leaves of Coca eroxylum, but without the adverse side effects that have led to its abuse. [Pg.49]

The opium alkaloids codeine and morphine served as models for the synthesis of naloxone, an important analog used to treat and diagnose opiate addicts, and also led to the discovery of endogenous opioids (enkephalins and endorphins) (see Chapter 47). Similarly, A9-tetrahydro-cannabinol (THC), the component of Cannabis sativa responsible for the central nervous system (CNS) effect, has also been found to reduce nausea associated with cancer chemotherapy (see Chapter 18). [Pg.49]


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