Plants with hypotensive, antiatheromatous and coronarodilatating action

Journal/Book: American J. of Chinese Medicine 7 (3), 197-236. 1979;

Abstract: However great the success in the therapy of hypertension,atherosclerosis and ischemic heart disease has been gained today byrecent efficient drugs, the definite healing of patients is not yetattained. The late discovery of reserpine, such an efficient drug ofplant origin against hypertension convinced so far reluctant scientiststo consider the chemical compounds of the plant world. With respect tothis traditional medical knowledge, it seems necessary to define moreaccurately the specificity of these healings - sometimes recommendedunspecifically for a whole branch of medicine. This experimentalverification should not use inconsiderately the present-dayclassification of diseases; there should be an awareness thatconventional experimental methods in pharmocology are often unsuitablefor revealing the real biological activity of one or another medicinalplant. The interest in the millennial field of health care isacknowledged by the World Health Organization which promotes researchand development of traditional medicine, along with investigations intoits psychosocial and ethnographic aspects. These studies cover a numberof plants growing in Bulgaria that have a healing effect inhypertension, atherosclerosis and ischemic heart disease according tothe data of traditional medicine. Using screening methods, extracts andchemically pure substances were investigated; extraction was done withsolvents such as water, ether, chloroform, dichloretan, ethanol,methanol, and acetone. Most of the experiments were carried out onanesthetized cats, rabbits and dogs. The substances tested were appliedmainly intravenously, and in some experiments orally. Chronicexperiments were also carried out on wakeful dogs with inducedhypertension, on animals fed on an atherogenic diet, and on animals withinduced arrhythmia and coronary spasm. Data are presented of clinicalexamination of some plants or of active substances isolated from them.Major results of these studies are presented for the following plants:Garlic; Geranium; Hellebore; Mistletoe; Olive; Valerian; Hawthorn;Peucedanum arenarium; Periwinkle; Fumitory. For another 50 plantsgrowing in Bulgaria and in other countries the author presents his andother investigators' experimental and clinical data about hypotensive,antiatheromatous and coronarodilatating actin.COPYRIGHT BY Elsevier Science BV, Amsterdam, Netherlands END OF DOCUMENT

Keyword(s): ANIMAL

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