"Searching for new, effective plant medicines: a quantitative synthesis of Malinké and Asháninka medicinal ethnobotany, with a new theoretical phylogenetic framework"
Central America
Tres Puntas (Neuro lobata)
Treating Malaria
Africa
African Wormwood (Artemisia afra)
African sleeping sickness
Europe
Toothache Plant
Toothache
China
Sweet Annie (Artemisia annua)
Malaria (and other fevers)
Link the phylogony of plants, cultures/languages ans diseases.
30% hit rate for ethnomedically-directed studies.
8.5% hit rate for random screenings. (Similar to research during week 2)
The more closely related plant species are, the more likely it is that they will have metabolites that can prevent the same diseases.
Synergy of medicinal plants
multiple compounds of various plants working together provides greater health benefits. The interaction of metabolites is not linear, which makes it difficult to be recognized by western medicine. For example one metabolite might be 5% effective and another might be 7% effective but when combined they exceed a 12% success rate. Difficult to get the FDA to approve multi compound drugs because each compound must be tested together and individually.
Ashaninka, Peru
Paititi
small village, about 6 families.
Una de Gato (Uncaria tomentosa)
Arthritus.
Widely used in the Amazon
2004 field work.
Spent 2 months in Peru with Ashaninka
conducted interviews, collected plants.
Malinke, Mali
1 month in Kita
conducted interviews, collected plants.
Species-Healer curve, a graph to figure out number of species found compared to amount of interviews. The graph helps to show when interviews should be continued or when new species are not being discovered often enough.
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