Current Traditional Medicine - Volume 8, Issue 3, 2022

Background: The extensive search for a novel therapeutic agent against Alzheimer's Disease (AD) in medical and pharmaceutical research still continues. Despite a lot being explored about its therapeutics, there is still much more to learn in order to achieve promising therapeutic agents against AD. Phytochemicals, especially secondary metabolites, are the major focus of the investigators for AD treatment. Objective: To describe major therapeutics targets of AD and the role of isothiocyanates (ITCs) in modulating these targets. Methods: Scientific databases, including Elsevier, Science Direct, Pub med, were explored. The explored literature was mainly journal publications on pathogenesis and targets of AD, and the effect of various ITCs in the modulation of these targets. Results: The major targets of AD include the Nrf-2/ARE signaling pathway, MAPKs pathway, GSK-3 signaling, and Ubiquitin-Protease system. ITCs, such as Sulforaphane, Allyl isothiocyanates, Moringin, 6-(methylsulfinyl) hexyl ITC, Phenethyl isothiocyanates, and Erucin, were reported to exert a protective effect against AD via modulating one of the several above mentioned targets. Conclusion: This article gives a detailed description of the therapeutic targets of AD and sheds light that phytochemicals, such as ITCs, can exert a protective effect against AD by targeting those pathways. However, properly designed research and clinical trials are required to include ITCs as a mainstream agent against AD.

The tendency to use herbal and complementary therapies has been increased dramatically in the last decades. The aim of this study is to review nephrotonic and nephroprotective medicinal herbs in traditional Persian Medicine (TPM) historical books and assess relevant scientific evidence and possible mechanisms of action. In this study, seven major references among pharmaceutical books of PM from the 11th to 19th centuries were selected and were searched with keywords equivalent to “nephroprotection”. To find new studies, the scientific names of medicinal herbs which have been repeated twice or more were searched using databases, including PubMed and Google scholar, with keywords of nephroprotective, renal disorder, renal failure and kidney. Also, probable effective mechanisms were explored with keywords, including oxidative stress, antioxidant, inflammation, anti-inflammatory and angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitor. 210 herbal remedies were found with kidney strengthening, nephroprotective, and atrophy prevention effects in reviewed books. The most repeated herbs were 41. Results of scientific evidence showed that the possible functional mechanisms of these plants include anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidative, blood pressure/glucose-lowering effect as well as improvement of glomerular filtration, prevention of tissue damage, and enhancing reconstructive power of cells. The list of medicinal herbs in this study can be used as a basis of future studies on the production of new medicines for the prevention or treatment of renal failure and for the enhancement of renalfunction.

Over the past decades, several natural constituents belonging to different classes have been isolated from plants for medicinal purposes. Cucurbitacins is one such type of natural compound. Cucurbitacin is a class of biochemical compounds that some plants, notably members of the pumpkin and gourd family, Cucurbitaceae produce and function as a defense against herbivores. They and their derivatives have been found in many plant families (including Brassicaceae, Cucurbitaceae, Scrophulariaceae, Begoniaceae, Elaeocarpaceae, Datiscaceae, Desfontainiaceae, Polemoniaceae, Primulaceae, Rubiaceae, Sterculiaceae, Rosaceae, and Thymelaeaceae), in some mushrooms (including Russula and Hebeloma) and even in some marine mollusks. They have been isolated from various plant species, chiefly belonging to the Cucurbitaceae family, which comprises around 130 genera and 800 species. Cucurbitacins are a group of tetracyclic triterpenoid substances that are highly oxygenated and contain a cucurbitane skeleton characterized by 9β-methyl−19-norlanosta- 5-ene. Cucurbitacins can be categorized into twelve main groups according to variations in their side-chains. Cucurbitacins A, B, C, D, E, F, I, J, K, L, O, P, Q, R, S, and their glycosides are mainly found in Cucurbitaceae family members. These plants have been used as folk medicines in some countries because of their broad spectrum of crucial pharmacological activities such as anti- inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-diabetic, and anti-atherosclerotic effects. The present review explores the possibility of a correlation between the chemistry of various Cucurbitacins and the uses of the plants which contain them, thereby opening avenues for further phytochemical, ethnomedicinal, and modern pharmacological research on these important molecules.

Hair graying occurs worldwide, and it has a high impact on an individual’s self-esteem. Hair graying is a melanogenesis disorder attributed to many factors, including age, oxidative stress, psychological stress, and malnutrition. Though there are effective p-phenylenediamine based hair dyes, they often cause allergy and systematic toxicity. Plants are a popular traditional remedy for the management of hair disorders. Due to their high chemical diversity, phytoproducts offer great promises to develop an effective and safe product to manage hair graying and melanogenesis disorders. The present article aims to review plants with traditional uses and bio-activity against hair graying. An extensive literature search was conducted on PubMed, Science Direct, and Google Scholar databases using many combinations of the following keywords: plants used to treat gray hair, natural products, hair graying, melanogenesis, pigmentation, and tyrosinase activity. This review documented about sixty-one plants, including a summary of 47 plants frequently used in traditional medicine and a brief review of fourteen plants showing promising activity against hair graying. The active constituents and the mechanisms by which active constituents exert anti-hair graying effects were reviewed.

Background: Kidney stone is the most commonly observed and painful disease of the urinary tract in human beings. Numerous intrinsic and extrinsic factors are responsible for the formation of kidney stones, for instance, age, sex, heredity (intrinsic factors), climate, diet, geography, mineral composition, and water intake (extrinsic factors). The kidney stones are categorized into calcium, struvite or magnesium ammonium phosphate, uric acid or urate, cystine, and other types of stones based on chemical composition and pathogenesis. Due to the multifactorial nature of kidney stone disease, the patient may need to rely on complex synthetic medication. However, in ancient Indian history, there are several pieces of evidence where natural resources such as plants were used to remediation this lethal disease. Objective: The present review attempts to provide exhaustive ethnomedicinal and ethnopharmacological information on medicinal plants used for kidney stones in India. Result: Hitherto, 258 ethnomedicinal plants from 90 different families reported using for kidney stone application. The majority of the plant species are associated with three important families: Asteraceae, Amaranthaceae, and Fabaceae. Most of the plants are from Andhra Pradesh (43 plants), followed by East Bengal (38), Jammu & Kashmir (36), Uttarakhand (31), Panjab (27), Mizoram (23), Karnataka (20), Maharashtra (20) and Assam (18). The commonly used plant parts for the herbal preparation are roots (21.22 %) followed by leaves/leaf (20.15 %), and sometimes complete plant (17.77 %) is used. The most commonly used method for the formulation is decoction (46.41 %) followed by powder (18.66 %) and then extracts (15.78 %) of different aerial and non-aerial parts of the plant. More than sixty ethnomedicinal plants assessed the in-vitro and in-vivo activities against the kidney stone. Conclusion: The present review epitomizes the ethnomedicinal information of medicinal plants used for kidney stones and pharmacological evidence for anti-urolithiasis activity. Most reported medicinal plants are not yet scientifically explored and need immediate attention before losing important species due to excessive deforestation for farming and industrial needs.