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International Dental Journal Dec 2011Herbs have been used for centuries to prevent and control disease. Herbal extracts are effective because they interact with specific chemical receptors within the body... (Review)
Review
Herbs have been used for centuries to prevent and control disease. Herbal extracts are effective because they interact with specific chemical receptors within the body and are in a pharmacodynamic sense, drugs themselves. By using herbal medicines, patients have averted the many side effects that generally come with traditional medicines, but this does not mean that side effects do not occur. Only knowledgeable practitioners can prescribe the right herb and its proper dosage. Herbal medicines had been considered in every culture, however, pharmaceutical companies overturned this type of thinking. Now, pharmaceuticals are called traditional and herbs are libeled as the 'alternative'. The biggest challenge and problem is lack of information about the effect of herbs in oral tissues, mechanism of effect, and side effects. Several popular conventional drugs on the market are derived from herbs. These include aspirin (from white willow bark), digitalis (from foxglove), and sudafed (modelled after a component in the plant ephedra). Herbal products can vary in their potency. Therefore, care must be taken in selecting herbs, even so, herbal medicines have dramatically fewer side effects and are safer to use than conventional medications. The herbs described in this article are Bloodroot, Caraway, Chamomile, Echinacea, Myrrh, Peppermint, Rosemary, Sage, Thyme, Aloe Vera, Propolis, and a summary of other herbs that are useful in dentistry. Herbs may be good alternatives to current treatments for oral health problems but it is clear that we need more research.
Topics: Anti-Infective Agents; Complementary Therapies; Humans; Pharmaceutical Preparations, Dental; Phytotherapy; Plant Extracts; Plants, Medicinal; Propolis
PubMed: 22117784
DOI: 10.1111/j.1875-595X.2011.00064.x -
Journal of Nephropharmacology 2015Herbal therapy is a holistic therapy, integrating emotional, mental and spiritual levels. Life style, emotional, mental and spiritual considerations are part of any... (Review)
Review
Herbal therapy is a holistic therapy, integrating emotional, mental and spiritual levels. Life style, emotional, mental and spiritual considerations are part of any naturopathic approach. The use of herbs does not generally involve "drug" actions or adverse effects. Although medicinal plants are widely used and assumed to be safe, however, they can potentially be toxic. Where poisoning from medicinal plants has been reported, it usually has been due to misidentification of the plants in the form, in which they are sold, or incorrectly preparation and administration by inadequately trained personnel. There are some "drug like" plants remedies that their actions approach that of pharmaceuticals. Herbalists use these plants in treatment strategies and in countries such as Britain their vast availability is restricted by law. Digitalis is one of these examples and the number of these plants is not a lot. The mechanisms by which the herbs generally act are not established, however, most of medicinal plants possess antioxidant activities. The plants have been shown to effective by this property is various conditions including cancer, memory deficit and Alzheimer, atherosclerosis, diabetes and other cardiovascular diseases. Antioxidant activities of herbal medicines are also effective in reducing the toxicities of toxic agents or other drugs.
PubMed: 28197471
DOI: No ID Found -
American Journal of Physiology. Heart... Dec 2022Cloning of the "Na pump" (Na,K-ATPase or NKA) and identification of a circulating ligand, endogenous ouabain (EO), a cardiotonic steroid (CTS), triggered seminal... (Review)
Review
Cloning of the "Na pump" (Na,K-ATPase or NKA) and identification of a circulating ligand, endogenous ouabain (EO), a cardiotonic steroid (CTS), triggered seminal discoveries regarding EO and its NKA receptor in cardiovascular function and the pathophysiology of heart failure (HF) and hypertension. Cardiotonic digitalis preparations were a preferred treatment for HF for two centuries, but digoxin was only marginally effective in a large clinical trial (1997). This led to diminished digoxin use. Missing from the trial, however, was any consideration that endogenous CTS might influence digitalis' efficacy. Digoxin, at therapeutic concentrations, acutely inhibits NKA but, remarkably, antagonizes ouabain's action. Prolonged treatment with ouabain, but not digoxin, causes hypertension in rodents; in this model, digoxin lowers blood pressure (BP). Furthermore, NKA-bound ouabain and digoxin modulate different protein kinase signaling pathways and have disparate long-term cardiovascular effects. Reports of "brain ouabain" led to the elucidation of a new, slow neuromodulatory pathway in the brain; locally generated EO and the α2 NKA isoform help regulate sympathetic drive to the heart and vasculature. The roles of EO and α2 NKA have been studied by EO assay, ouabain-resistant mutation of α2 NKA, and immunoneutralization of EO with ouabain-binding Fab fragments. The NKA α2 CTS binding site and its endogenous ligand are required for BP elevation in many common hypertension models and full expression of cardiac remodeling and dysfunction following pressure overload or myocardial infarction. Understanding how endogenous CTS impact hypertension and HF pathophysiology and therapy should foster reconsideration of digoxin's therapeutic utility.
Topics: Digitalis; Cardiac Glycosides; Ligands; Heart Failure; Hypertension
PubMed: 36367691
DOI: 10.1152/ajpheart.00362.2022 -
Frontiers in Pharmacology 2020The Celtic linguistic community dominated large spans of Central and Western Europe between 800 BC and 500 AD, but knowledge of their traditional medicine is very... (Review)
Review
The Celtic linguistic community dominated large spans of Central and Western Europe between 800 BC and 500 AD, but knowledge of their traditional medicine is very limited. Multiple progressive plant gains in Neolithic settlements along the Danube and up the Rhine valleys suggested that taxon diversity of gathered plants peaked at the Balkans and was subsequently reduced as crop and gathered plants packages were adopted and dispersed throughout Neolithic Europe. This process coincided with the Bronze Age migration of the R1b proto-Celtic tribes, and their herbal traditions were occasionally recorded in the classic Greco-Roman texts on herbal medicines. The provenance of Celtic (Gallic) healing methods and magical formulas as recorded by Pliny, Scribonius Largus, and Marcellus Empiricus can still be found in the first part of the medieval Welsh (Cymry) herbal manuscript (recipes 1-188). Although the majority of I recipes were based on the Mediterranean herbal tradition of Dioscorides and Macer Floridus, they preserved the unique herbal preparation signatures distinct from continental and Anglo-Saxon counterparts in increased use of whey and ashes as vehicles for formulation of herbal remedies. Six plants could be hypothetically attributed to the Celtic (Welsh) herbal tradition including foxglove ( L.), corn bellflower ( L.), self-heal ( L.), sharp dock ( Murray), water pimpernel ( L.), and river startip ( L.) This review provides initial evidence for traces of Celtic framework in the Welsh herbal tradition and warrants further investigations of bioactivity and clinical applications of the described plant leads.
PubMed: 32184721
DOI: 10.3389/fphar.2020.00105 -
Brazilian Journal of Medical and... Feb 2000This review highlights the current advances in knowledge about the safety, efficacy, quality control, marketing and regulatory aspects of botanical medicines.... (Review)
Review
This review highlights the current advances in knowledge about the safety, efficacy, quality control, marketing and regulatory aspects of botanical medicines. Phytotherapeutic agents are standardized herbal preparations consisting of complex mixtures of one or more plants which contain as active ingredients plant parts or plant material in the crude or processed state. A marked growth in the worldwide phytotherapeutic market has occurred over the last 15 years. For the European and USA markets alone, this will reach about $7 billion and $5 billion per annum, respectively, in 1999, and has thus attracted the interest of most large pharmaceutical companies. Insufficient data exist for most plants to guarantee their quality, efficacy and safety. The idea that herbal drugs are safe and free from side effects is false. Plants contain hundreds of constituents and some of them are very toxic, such as the most cytotoxic anti-cancer plant-derived drugs, digitalis and the pyrrolizidine alkaloids, etc. However, the adverse effects of phytotherapeutic agents are less frequent compared with synthetic drugs, but well-controlled clinical trials have now confirmed that such effects really exist. Several regulatory models for herbal medicines are currently available including prescription drugs, over-the-counter substances, traditional medicines and dietary supplements. Harmonization and improvement in the processes of regulation is needed, and the general tendency is to perpetuate the German Commission E experience, which combines scientific studies and traditional knowledge (monographs). Finally, the trend in the domestication, production and biotechnological studies and genetic improvement of medicinal plants, instead of the use of plants harvested in the wild, will offer great advantages, since it will be possible to obtain uniform and high quality raw materials which are fundamental to the efficacy and safety of herbal drugs.
Topics: Controlled Clinical Trials as Topic; Developed Countries; Developing Countries; Drug Approval; Guidelines as Topic; Legislation, Drug; Phytotherapy; Quality Control
PubMed: 10657057
DOI: 10.1590/s0100-879x2000000200004 -
Journal of the American College of... Mar 1989Forty years ago therapy for congestive heart failure was limited largely to the mercurial diuretics and a variety of cardiac glycoside preparations; these were often... (Review)
Review
Forty years ago therapy for congestive heart failure was limited largely to the mercurial diuretics and a variety of cardiac glycoside preparations; these were often ineffective, and the common practice of "pushing" digitalis caused serious, sometimes lethal side effects. Today, a more complete understanding of the regulation of cardiac work and pathophysiology of heart failure is having a profound impact on therapeutic strategy for this common condition. Despite more powerful means to augment myocardial contractility and much more effective diuretics, therapy that relies only on inotropic stimulation and diuresis is no longer optimal for the majority of patients with heart failure. Thus, strategies for the therapy of heart failure must take into account new understanding of mechanisms that initiate, perpetuate and exacerbate the hemodynamic and myocardial abnormalities in these patients. Recognition of the detrimental effects of excessive afterload and the importance of relaxation (lusitropic) as well as contraction (inotropic) abnormalities has led to widespread acceptance of vasodilator therapy, which has dramatically improved our ability to alleviate the symptoms of heart failure. Changes that result from altered gene expression in the hypertrophied myocardium of patients with congestive heart failure can give rise to a cardiomyopathy of overload that, although initially compensatory, may hasten death. These and other advances in our understanding of the pathophysiology, biochemistry and molecular biology of heart failure provide a basis for new therapeutic strategies that can slow the progressive myocardial damage that causes many of these patients to die, while at the same time improving well-being in patients with congestive heart failure.
Topics: Cardiotonic Agents; Digitalis Glycosides; Diuretics; Heart Failure; Humans; Vasodilator Agents
PubMed: 2645340
DOI: 10.1016/0735-1097(89)90586-x -
Journal of the American College of... May 1985Digoxin, the cardiac glycoside most frequently used in clinical practice in the United States, can be given orally or intravenously and has an excretory half-life of 36... (Review)
Review
Digoxin, the cardiac glycoside most frequently used in clinical practice in the United States, can be given orally or intravenously and has an excretory half-life of 36 to 48 hours in patients with serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen values in the normal range. Since the drug is excreted predominantly by the kidney, the half-life is prolonged progressively with diminishing renal function, reaching about 5 days on average in patients who are essentially anephric. Serum protein binding of digoxin is only about 20%, and differs markedly in this regard from that of digitoxin, which is 97% bound by serum albumin at usual therapeutic levels. Digitoxin is nearly completely absorbed from the normal gastrointestinal tract and has a half-life averaging 5 to 6 days in patients receiving usual doses irrespective of renal function. The bioavailability of digoxin is appreciably less than that of digitoxin, averaging about two-thirds to three-fourths of the equivalent dose given intravenously in the case of currently available tablet formulations. Recent studies have shown that gut flora of about 10% of patients reduce digoxin to a less bioactive dihydro derivative. This process is sensitive to antibiotic administration, creating the potential for important interactions among drugs. Serum or plasma concentrations of digitalis glycosides can be measured by radioimmunoassay methods that are now widely available, but knowledge of serum levels does not substitute for a sound working knowledge of the clinical pharmacology of the preparation used and careful patient follow-up.
Topics: Absorption; Biological Availability; Cardiac Glycosides; Cost-Benefit Analysis; Digitoxin; Digoxin; Half-Life; Humans; Kinetics; Radioimmunoassay; Time Factors
PubMed: 3921586
DOI: 10.1016/s0735-1097(85)80462-9 -
Canadian Medical Association Journal Feb 1964
Topics: Bradycardia; Delirium; Digitalis; Digitalis Glycosides; Digitoxin; Digoxin; Gynecomastia; Humans; Lanatosides; Male; Neuritis; Paresthesia; Tachycardia; Thrombocytopenia; Toxicology; Trigeminal Neuralgia; Urticaria
PubMed: 14122470
DOI: No ID Found -
ACS Omega Jul 2017Digitalis drugs are selective inhibitors of the plasma membrane Na/K-ATPase. There are many studies on molecular mechanisms of digitalis interaction with purified pig...
Digitalis drugs are selective inhibitors of the plasma membrane Na/K-ATPase. There are many studies on molecular mechanisms of digitalis interaction with purified pig kidney enzyme, with the tacit assumption that it is a good model of human kidney enzyme. However, previous studies on crude or recombinant human kidney enzymes are limited, and have not resulted in consistent findings on their digitalis sensitivities. Hence, we prepared comparably purified enzymes from human and pig kidneys and determined inhibitory constants of digoxin, ouabain, ouabagenin, bufalin, and marinobufagenin (MBG) on enzyme activity under optimal turnover conditions. We found that each compound had the same potency against the two enzymes, indicating that (i) the pig enzyme is an appropriate model of the human enzyme, and (ii) prior discrepant findings on human kidney enzymes were either due to structural differences between the natural and recombinant enzymes or because potencies were determined using binding constants of digitalis for enzymes under nonphysiological conditions. In conjunction with previous findings, our newly determined inhibitory constants of digitalis compounds for human kidney enzymes indicate that (i) of the compounds that have long been advocated to be endogenous hormones, only bufalin and MBG may act as such at kidney tubules, and (ii) beneficial effects of digoxin, the only digitalis with extensive clinical use, does not involve its inhibitory effect on renal tubular Na/K-ATPase.
PubMed: 28782051
DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.7b00591