Asthma is a disease of the respiratory system. It is not easy to treat asthma by allopathic drugs, although drugs are the available for treatment of an acute asthmatic attack. It is the long term treatment of chronic asthma which leave much to be desired.
It is now well accepted that exercise, yoga and appropriate diet and fresh air all help in the treatment of asthma. Unfortunately due to pollution of the environment the number of cases of asthma in our cities and urban slums is increasing. What can alternative medicine offer in this area of concern other than yoga and an altered life style? During a national seminar on medicinal plants, field workers from all over India identified four plants, which are being used to treat asthma. These plants are Albizzia lebeck, Solanum canthcarpum, Glycyrrhiza glabra and Adhatoda vasica. The common names of this four plants are Shirish, Kantakari, Mulethi and Vasica respectively. The bark of the Shirish is used for treatment of asthma.
Several ancient texts of Ayurvedic have mentioned this plant for treatment of respiratory infections. Now, however, for the first time a double blind controlled clinical trial of Albizzzia lebeck is being conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research at different centres in India. If the Plant is shown to be effective and its anti-asthma proven, then there is no reason why this alternative medicine cannot be used in our allopathic hospitals for treatment of asthma.
Kantakari is used for the treatment of cough, asthma and other respiratory diseases. It is available and used throughout the country. The dried roots of the plant are used to prepare the medicine. More work, both experimental and clinical needs to be carried out with Kantakari. Kantakari is present in many Ayurvedic medicines available in the Indian market. Mulethi or Glycyrrhiza glabra – the liquorice root has been mentioned in several books of alternative medicine as a plant which is useful for the treatment of diseases of the respiratory tract. These include the treatment of asthma.
The roots of the plant are used for this purpose. In addition to its effect in respiratory diseases, mulethi is also mentioned as a drug which increases the level of blood sodium and decreases the level of potassium. This property of the plant made it useful for treating patient with reduced adrenocortical function. However this same sodium retaining effect proved a drawback when glycyrrhiza was used in the treatment of peptic ulcer-where the sodium retaining effect was not needed.
Vasica, again has been widely used traditionally for the treatment of bronchial asthma. The leaves of the plant are used for this purpose. Work carried out at different laboratories has shown that the leaves of Adhatoda vasica dilate the bronchioles. This bronchodilatory action is probably a mechanism of how the plant acts. The plant contains as alkaloid vasicinone which also possesses such an effect on the bronchi. In addition to these four plants, tulsi (Ocimum sanctum) also has a beneficial effect in respiratory diseases and can also be used in the prevention of attack of asthma.
These five plants provide powerful tools for the prevention and treatment of asthma and it is hoped that these will be used to maximum effects to counteract and treat this conditions.
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