A Short Note on Natural Products and Medicinal Plants

Corresponding Author:

Leena Loreal Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Boston University, USA E-mail: leena_l@bu.edu

Abstract

Introduction

Medicinal plants, also recognized as medicinal herbs, have indeed been discovered and used in traditional system of medicine. Plants produce hundreds of compounds that serve a variety of functions, which include defense against insects, fungi, diseases, and herbivorous mammals. Innumerable phytochemicals have indeed been identified as having possibility or established bioactivity. However, because a single plant includes a wide range of phytochemicals, the consequences of using the entire plant as medicine are unidentified. Furthermore, the phytochemical content and, if there are any, pharmacological effects of several plants with medicinal potential have yet to be determined by proper scientific research to identify efficacy and safety, The Sumerian civilization does have the earliest historical documents of herbs, with thousands of medicinal plants, including opium, mentioned on clay tablets around 3000 BC. Over 850 plant medications are described in the Ebers Papyrus, which has been discovered in ancient Egypt around 1550 BC. In De material medica, c. 60 AD, the Greek physician Dioscorides, who worked in the Roman army, documented over 1000 recipes for medicines going from strength to strength 600 medicinal plants; this provided the basis of pharmacopoeias since over 1500 years. Ethno botany is often used in pharmaceutical research to look for active compounds, and this approach has yielded hundreds of chemical materials. Aspirin, digoxin, quinine, and opium are common examples drugs. Phytoconstituents come in a variety of forms, however the majority fall into four categories Alkaloids, glycosides, polyphenols, and terpenes are the 4 major physiochemical classes, Medicinal plants are widely used during non-industrialized societies, owing to their ease of availability as well as lower cost than modern drugs.

In 2012, the annual global export value of thousands of different types of medicinal herbs was estimated to be US$2.2 billion. The world market for botanicals and medicines was worth an estimated several thousand billion U.S dollars in 2017. Traditional medicine is not regulated in many nations, however the World Health Organization coordinates a system to inspire safe and rational use. Medicinal herbs are threatened by both amount of harmful including such global warming and habitat destruction, as well as the clear threat of over-collection to satisfy consumers, A natural substance is a chemical compound or substance that’s also produced by a living thing and is therefore found in the environment. Natural products, inside the broadest terms, also include involves some sort by life. Naturally occurring substances can be synthesized chemically (both semi synthesis and total synthesis) and also have played a critical part in the development of organic chemistry by providing challenging synthetic targets. The term “natural substance” was also used commercially to refer to cosmetics, nutritional supplements, and food products derived from natural that do not contain any artificial additives, Natural products are generally defined in the development of organic chemistry as organic molecules isolated from plant sources and generated by primary or secondary metabolic processes. Metabolites are frequently excluded from the definition inside the field of medicinal chemistry. Secondary metabolites are not required for survival, but they do provide an evolutionary benefit to the organisms that produce them. Many secondary metabolites seem to be cytotoxic and have been selected and optimized for use as “chemical warfare” agents against prey, predators, and competing organisms through evolvement.

Acknowledgement

None

Conflict of Interest

The author declares there is no conflict of interest.