Four common roadside plants confirmed to hold real medicinal compounds
Medicinal Plants
The scrappy vine climbing a fence near you might be Tinospora cordifolia, a plant local healers have trusted for generations, and this study backs up why.
Scientists tested four plants that grow wild in a part of India, plants long used in traditional medicine, to see exactly what chemicals they contain. They found meaningful amounts of the compounds responsible for the plants' reputed health effects, essentially giving scientific backing to generations of folk knowledge.
Key Findings
1
Quantitative phytochemical screening was performed on four species: Achyranthes aspera, Tinospora cordifolia, Cissus quadrangularis, and Mimosa pudica.
2
Plants were sourced from the Ramgarh Block of Ramgarh District, Jharkhand, India.
3
Results support the traditional medicinal use of these species by confirming presence of bioactive phytochemical constituents.
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Technical Summary
Researchers measured the chemical compounds in four traditional medicinal plants growing in a district of eastern India, confirming these common wild plants contain the active ingredients long used in folk remedies.
Achyranthes aspera is a species of plant in the family Amaranthaceae. It is distributed throughout the tropical world. It can be found in many places growing as an introduced species and a common weed. It is an invasive species in some areas, including many Pacific Islands environments.