Medicinal Properties of Plant Compounds

For thousands of years, more people worldwide have been relying on herbal remedies to treat a variety of ailments with remarkable results. In fact, research shows not less than 80% or over 4 billion of the world’s population, rely solely on plants to provide medicines, and in “the developing world, herbal medicinal products are a primary source of healthcare and traditional medical practice which involves the use of herbs is viewed as an integral part of the culture in those communities.”¹

According to scientific estimates, the earth is home to about 450,000 different species of plants. The tropics are home to the greatest majority of plants—300,000, and about 150, 000 are in danger of being extinct.² Plants contain organic compounds or chemicals called phytochemicals³ that are known to promote human health and treat a variety of medical conditions.⁴ In fact, some of the laboratories manufactured drugs that are prescribed to you by your doctor contain natural substances or the idea for their development came from the knowledge of the chemical structure, and/or traditional use of the active ingredient(s) in plants.^{5, 6, 7} As has been rightly stated, “nature is a master chemist,” because it provides not only the most trusted and widely accepted sources of medicine for a countless number of people for thousands of years, but it is also the place to look for ideas for the development of new drugs.

It is estimated that up to 50% of the drugs sold or made in laboratories around the world over the past 30 years contain compounds that came directly or indirectly from plants.⁶ For example, aspirin was first made from the bark of the willow tree. The breast cancer drug Taxol has active ingredients derived from the pacific yew tree. Quinine derives from the bark of the chinchona tree and is a very effective anti-malarial medicine. And silymarin from milk thistle is prescribed for all kinds of liver disorders to name a few.

Additionally, it has been shown that the majority of these plant–derived substances are used to treat bacterial infections or cancer. Over a period of 30 years from the 1940s to 2010, “of the 175 small molecules, 131, or 74.8%, are other than “S” (synthetic), with 85, or 48.6%, actually being either natural products or directly derived therefrom. In other areas, the influence of natural product structures is quite marked, with, as expected from prior information, the anti–infective area being dependent on natural products and their structures.”⁷

Even among industrialized or developed countries like the UK and the rest of Europe, North America, and Australia, the use of herbs to treat diseases and complementary and alternative medicines are becoming more widely accepted and much more mainstream.¹ It is true that many drugs synthesized have saved countless lives and enabled many more to live normal lives, but it is equally true that these drugs are often very expensive, hard to get, or unavailable to many people in third-world countries. In addition, the side effects produced as a result of taking some of these drugs are extremely dangerous.⁸ Who would have thought that taking a drug for asthma could actually increase your chances of dying from the disease^{9, 10} the drug was meant to treat, or that taking a drug to control none life-threatening symptoms of menopause could dramatically increase your chances of all kinds of cancer and various diseases associated with the cardiovascular system.¹¹ The question now becomes: which one can I afford to live with—the original disease or the original disease plus some other more deadly disease or symptom? I hope the answer is clear.