Thursday, October 13, 2011

Fight Cancer With Herbs - Natural Treatment for Herbs

The most recent gift to modern medicine from the world of plants and tress is a new treatment for ovarian cancer which occurs in women. Figures are not readily available from India but at least fine thousand new cases of ovarian cancer are diagnosed every year in the United Kingdom. There are four thousand deaths every year from this disease in the UK.

The substance taxol from the tree Taxus baccata has been shown to be effective in treating ovarian cancer. The tree is commonly known as the Pacific Yew Tree. It is not common in India but other varieties of the tree do grow in the Nilgiris in India. This could become a source for production of this medicine.

Interestingly, the path to this discovery was not through mention of the plant as medicinal plant in ancient literature nor was it used in folklore or traditional medicine for this purpose. The National Cancer Institute at the National Institute of Health, Washington initiated a programme around 1995 to try and find anti-cancer drugs from plants. Plants from all over the world were collected and tested for anti-cancer properties. These plants could be those reputed to have an anti-cancer effect or could be plants picked up at random. One of the plants which demonstrated interesting anti-cancer activity in the laboratory was the Pacific Yew.

The National Cancer Institute itself did not carry out further work on this plant but passed on the information to research scientist at the Research Triangle Institute at North Caroline, USA.
Eventually two scientist at this centre, Dr M.C. Wani and Dr Munore E. Wall characterised taxol in 1971. An additional twenty one years work and after spending approximately $ 180 million, the pharmaceutical house Bristol-Myers Squibb was given approval by the United States Food and Drug Administration in December 1992 to market the drug for the treatment of ovarian cancer.

Clinical trails of this substance were carried out in USA and the beneficial effect on ovarian cancer was unequivocally shown. Cancer specialists have hailed the use of taxol as a major advance in cancer treatment. Taxol acts in those cases of ovarian cancer where other anti-cancer drugs fail to induce any effect. One consultant who is cancer treatment specialist at Guy’s Hospital London described this as “the largest step forward we have had for ten years.” It was released in the United Kingdom in January 1994. It is now available in India. The development of this anti-cancer drug, taxol, from a plant has several pointers for countries now beginning such research.

It is possible to find a drug by testing plants randomly-including plants which are not known to have any medicinal properties. The procedure for developing a drug is so complicated and expensive that the National Cancer Institute did not even try to develop the drug. It is the pharmaceutical houses which have the expertise and the huge resources needed. Finally the chances of obtaining a ‘winner’ such as taxol are very low.

The National Cancer Institute tested about 4,00,000 plant extracts and synthetic drugs for activity against cancer from 1955 till 1990 taxol is the only drug developed from the

Many plant extracts tested. It is interesting, however, that the two other drugs for the treatment of leukaemia – vinbastine and vincristine –were also developed from the periwinkle plant, Vinca rosea, by the pharmaceutical house of Eli Lilly. Considering that there are so many untested plants available, it is possible that a few other anti-cancer drugs may be developed from plants.

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Chitika