Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which relates to nervous degeneration, is the most popular form of memory loss. The pathogenesis of AD is not fully understood, and there are no therapies for this disorder. Some drugs have been used in clinical applications for preventing and treating AD, but they have significant adverse reactions. Therefore, there is a need to develop treatment for AD. Traditional medicine has used many medicinal plants to alleviate the symptoms of AD. Medicinal plants may reduce neurodegenerative disorders with fewer side effects than chemical drugs, and they are promising drug candidates for AD therapy. This review is the summary of the pathogenesis and treatments of AD and includes information about the chemistry and bioactivities of some medicinal plants from the Huperzia species, such as Huperzia saururus, Huperzia selago, Huperzia phlegmaria, Huperzia fargesii, Huperzia serrata, Huperzia reflexa and Huperzia quadrifariata, that are used for the treatment of AD. We searched literature, including Medline, Embase, Google Scholar and PubMed database, and did a bibliographic review of relevant articles. Key words included Huperzia species, huperzine, huperin, Huperzia and Alzheimer’s disease. We found that the main bioactive compounds of the Huperzia species are alkaloids, which have shown significant effects on preventing the development of AD. They are new promising compounds against AD due to their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activities in the neural system. Our conclusion from this review is that the Huperzia species are potential source containing various pharmaceutical compounds for the treatment of AD.

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Herbal extract, rich with natural compounds, has been used for medicinal purpose such as treating neurological disorders such as cognitive defection for a long period of time, often without significant adverse effects. We compared AChE and BuChE – inhibition effect of total extracts and fractions of Huperzia serrata (Thunb.) Trevis. with alcaloid-rich extract. Our samples were subjected under supersonic extraction with ethanol 50o as solvent and fractionally extracted with n-hexane, EtOAc and n-butanol, respectively; alcaloid-rich extract was collected simutaneously. Ellman’s method was used to assay AChE and BuChE inhibition activity. Results: Alcaloid-rich extraction proved to be the superior AChE inhibiting agent, its activity nearly 6 fold of the most active Huperzia serrata extraction with IC50 value of 7.93 (5.43-10.98) µg/ml. 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Background: Traditional medicine used Mimosa pudica Linn. for diabetes treatment. This study evaluates the antidiabetic and renoprotective of ethyl acetate fraction of M.pudica leaves on streptozotocin-induced diabetes in mice. Methods: The cold maceration method was used to extract M.pudica leaves with 80% ethanol at room temperature. Ethyl acetate (EtOAc) fraction was obtained from the M.pudica leaves extract by successively partitioning with different solvents. Mice were induced diabetes type 2 by streptozotocin (STZ) at a low dose and treated with EtOAc fraction of M. pudica leaves at 50 mg/kg and 100 mg/kg b.w for 60 days. After 24 hours of the final dose of therapy, the mice were sacrificed to extract blood and kidney tissues for biochemical and histopathological analysis. Results: The EtOAc fraction of M. pudica leaves showed strong activity in improving glucose concentration in oral glucose tolerance test. Our results showed that EtOAc fraction significantly decreased levels of glucose, total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), triglyceride (TG), and increased the level of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and protected kidney against damages in mice. EtOAc fraction also increased the levels of antioxidant enzymes including catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), superoxide dismutase (SOD), activities, and decreased malondialdehyde (MDA) formation, pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β and TNF-α) in kidney tissues. Moreover, renoprotective effect was also observed in the histopathological analysis. Conclusion: Our findings support that EtOAc fraction of M. pudica leaves have potent anti-diabetic nephropathy activity by decreasing of pro-inflammatory cytokines and improving antioxidant levels.

Background: Pueraria candollei variety mirifica (PM) has been widely used as ingredient in many rejuvenating products. In this study, we aimed to assess the estrogenic activity of PM extract grown in Vietnam.Methods: Estrogenic activity of PM extract was estimated on immature female rats by using uterotrophic method to measure the weight of the reproductive organs. Estrogenic activity of PM extract also was investigated in mature female ovariectomized rats by evaluating the vaginal cells growth, reproductive organs weight, serum estradiol concentration.Results: Our results showed that PM extract at doses of 100 mg/kg, 200 mg/kg had increased the reproductive organs weight in immature rats and female ovariectomized rats. In addition, PM extract had increased the serum estradiol concentration and the vaginal cells growth by increasing the percentage of keratinocytes in female ovariectomized rats.Conclusions: Our results showed that PM extract has strong estrogenic activity in rats.