Biological evaluation of plants of Laos used in the treatment of tuberculosis in Lao traditional medicine

Abstract

Tuberculosis has existed in Southeast Asia for thousands of years. Many traditional treatments involve herbal remedies. Over time, these traditional treatments have had the chance to become refined based on efficacy and safety. It was therefore hypothesized that plants that were used in the past and are still used today to treat symptoms associated with tuberculosis are more likely to contain anti-tubercular compounds than plants that have not been used continuously. To try to deduce which plants were used in Laos in the past, a collection of palm leaf manuscripts was studied and a list of plants used to treat symptoms associated with tuberculosis was compiled. Interviews were then conducted with contemporary healers to see if the same plants are still being used today. Plants that were found in the manuscripts and/or are presently used by healers were collected, extracted and were evaluated in an anti-tubercular assay. This paper presents the methods used to identify and collect plants used to treat symptoms indicative of tuberculosis, and the results of anti-TB assays to test for activity.

Ethnobotanical approach versus random approach in the search for new bioactive compounds: Support of a hypothesis

“…humors, doctrine of signatures, doshas) may influence selection of medicinal plants. Certainly, medicinal plant texts that date back a minimum of a few hundred years are known from South Asia, such as the palm-leaf manuscripts that were produced in Laotian monasteries (Elkington et al, 2009). Cultural processes may thus result in the medicinal use of plants for reasons other than their pharmacological properties.…”

New finding of an anti-TB compound in the genus Marsypopetalum (Annonaceae) from a traditional herbal remedy of Laos

“…This was done to predict specificity of the plant extract to mycobacteria as opposed to other pathogens. A subset of Table 1 was previously published (Elkington et al, 2009). After finding the results, some of the plants were recollected.…”

Prevention and control of tuberculosis infections: a phenomenology study

“…TB treatment can also be done with traditional medicines that can be made from animals and mineral materials (Oeser et al, 2005) although traditional medicines are less effective (Liu et al, 2014) (Elkington et al, 2009).…”