Plant-derived medications. (Photo by R. Butler)
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MEDICINAL DRUGS / RAINFOREST CURES
By Rhett Butler | Last updated July 22, 2007
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The rainforest may someday provide the cure for AIDS, pancreatic cancer, antibiotic-resistant staph infections, lassa fever, or Alzheimer's disease, if given the chance to do so. Unfortunately, as primary forest cover is diminished by
1-2 percent every year, it is projected that 20-25 percent of the world's plant species will be extinct by the year 2015. Perhaps
in some remote Andean valley, slated for destruction today, lives a rare orchid which has developed an anti-viral
chemical that kills HIV, halts cancer, or slows aging. In addition, the shamans who provide much of the insight
into identifying these plants and their uses, are disappearing at an even faster rate as their villages seek a
more Western lifestyle. These shamans are generally elders and when they die, their unique knowledge of traditional
uses of rainforest plants will die with them.
Some organizations are trying to prevent the loss of medicinal knowledge when indigenous elders die. The Terra
Nova Rainforest Reserve is the first ethnomedicinal forest reserve designed to ensure that medicinal plants will be
available for local use. The reserve encourages the use of such plants and has also implemented a program teaching
youths about uses of medicinal plants so this knowledge will not die, but be passed on to future generations and
researchers.
National botanical gardens, like those of Missouri and New York, are playing an important role in propagating medicinal
plants that are either threatened in the wild or so rare that collection cannot satisfy demand. Several gardens
have propagated such medicinal plants and freely distributed seedlings to peasants who can integrate them into
their traditional food crops. The plants can provide substantially more cash than many traditional crops like bananas,
coffee, and cocoa.
Animals as an inspiration for drugs
Animals also provide compounds useful to humans as medicinal drugs. Both leeches and vampire bats have powerful
anticoagulants they use in feeding on their prey. From the saliva of the leech comes hirudin, which is now used
to dissolve blood clots in humans. The vampire bat has a salival substance that can be used to prevent heart attacks.
The slimy secretions of frogs are used to treat infections, mental disorders, and even HIV, while scientists hope that
one day blood from the ubiquitous (in the western U.S.) western fence lizard (more popularly known as the "blue-belly")
will help prevent or cure Lyme disease. ABT-594 is an experimental painkiller derived from the skin secretions of Epipedobates tricolor, a colorful poison arrow frog, and crocodile blood is being examined for its anti-HIV properties.
Review questions:
- Why are plants a good potential source for natural pesticides?
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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Recent news
Frog secretion illicitly used to help racehorses run faster
(06/21/2012) A compound found in the secretions of a South American frog is being used to boost the performance of racehorses, reports The New York Times.
Shamans and indigenous spiritual leaders unite in Malibu
(11/09/2011) Just north of Los Angeles on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean is a special piece of ancient tribal land. Prehistoric artifacts and burials indicate that occupation occurred there as early as 6000 BC. It was this primeval site on a crisp October night recently where the Wishtoyo Foundation and the Chumash people, in cooperation with the Amazon Conservation Team, held 'A Summit of Indigenous Spiritual Leaders.'
Taking back the rainforest: Indians in Colombia govern 100,000 square miles of territory
(05/10/2010) Indigenous groups in the Colombian Amazon have long suffered deprivations at the hands of outsiders. First came the diseases brought by the European Conquest, then came abuses under colonial rule. In modern times, some Amazonian communities were virtually enslaved by the debt-bondage system run by rubber traders: Indians could work their entire lives without ever escaping the cycle of debt. Later, periodic invasions by gold miners, oil companies, colonists, and illegal coca-growers took a heavy toll on remaining indigenous populations. Without title to their land, organization, or representation, indigenous Colombians in the Amazon seemed destined to be exploited and abused. But new hope would emerge in the 1980s, thanks partly to the efforts of Martin von Hildebrand, an ethnologist who would help indigenous Colombians eventually win control over 260,000 square kilometers (100,000 square miles) of Amazon rainforest—an area larger than the United Kingdom.
How rainforest shamans treat disease
(11/10/2009) Ethnobotanists, people who study the relationship between plants and people, have long documented the extensive use of medicinal plants by indigenous shamans in places around the world, including the Amazon. But few have reported on the actual process by which traditional healers diagnose and treat disease. A new paper, published in the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, moves beyond the cataloging of plant use to examine the diseases and conditions treated in two indigenous villages deep in the rainforests of Suriname. The research, which based on data on more than 20,000 patient visits to traditional clinics over a four-year period, finds that shamans in the Trio tribe have a complex understanding of disease concepts, one that is comparable to Western medical science. Trio medicine men recognize at least 75 distinct disease conditions—ranging from common ailments like fever [këike] to specific and rare medical conditions like Bell's palsy [ehpijanejan] and distinguish between old (endemic) and new (introduced since contact with the outside world) illnesses. In an interview with mongabay.com, Lead author Christopher Herndon, currently a reproductive medicine physician at the University of California, San Francisco, says the findings are a testament to the under-appreciated healing prowess of indigenous shaman.
Research into drugs derived from natural products declining
(07/09/2009) Although the majority of drugs available today have been derived from natural products, research into nature-based pharmaceuticals has declined in recent years due to high development costs and the drug approvals process. However this trend is likely to reverse due to new approaches and technologies, according researchers from the University of Alberta.
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