This prickly blue-flowered herb eased PCOS symptoms in lab rats
Sheikh WM, Jan J, Wani AK, Shafi M, Hussain I, Jadhav I, Bashir SM.
Medicinal Plants
The rough, bristly-leaved borage relative growing wild in Mediterranean scrublands and sometimes cultivated as an ornamental turns out to pack over a hundred bioactive compounds that could inspire future treatments for a hormonal condition affecting millions of women.
Researchers gave rats a condition that mimics polycystic ovary syndrome, then treated them with an extract from Anchusa strigosa, a prickly-leaved plant in the borage family. The higher dose of the extract reduced weight gain, lowered markers of cell damage, boosted the body's natural antioxidants, and helped switch on genes involved in healthy ovarian development, coming close to matching the effects of a common diabetes drug used for PCOS.
Key Findings
A. strigosa extract at 250 mg/kg reduced letrozole-induced weight gain in rats from 249.66 g back toward 225.27 g, versus 174.33 g in normal controls
The high-dose treatment improved oxidative stress markers: malondialdehyde dropped from 70.20 to 60.90, superoxide dismutase rose from 16.82 to 22.57, and glutathione rose from 1.83 to 3.22
Treatment upregulated ovarian Wnt7a and Wnt8b gene and protein expression and restored ovarian morphology and estrous cyclicity, with 114 bioactive compounds identified via FTIR and GC-MS
chevron_right Technical Summary
A plant called Anchusa strigosa, used in traditional medicine, helped restore hormone balance, reduce oxidative stress, and normalize ovarian function in rats with a PCOS-like condition, performing nearly as well as the standard drug metformin.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Phytochemical and Molecular Insights Into the Anti-PCOS Potential of Anchusa Strigosa: Targeting Hormones, Biochemical Markers, and WNT Genes.
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a complex endocrine and metabolic disorder characterized by reproductive dysfunction, oxidative stress, and metabolic abnormalities. The present study investigat...
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Anchusa strigosa is a non-succulent species of herbaceous plants in the Boraginaceae family endemic to the Eastern Mediterranean regions, particularly Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and Iran. It is known widely by its common names of strigose bugloss and prickly alkanet.