Can an Apple a Day Keep the Doctor Away?

Abstract

The modern pharmaceutical industry based on synthetic chemistry severed the historical connection between plants, food and medicines. The growing costs of discovering new chemical entity-based drugs through high throughput screening methods may yet again reconnect plants and human health at a new level of technological sophistication. Multi-component botanical therapeutics that comprise functional foods, dietary supplements and botanical drugs hold several advantages over conventional drugs that may earn them a more prominent place in the medicine of the future. They can deliver mixtures of multi-functional molecules with potentiating and synergistic effects and pleiotropic targeting at a reasonable cost and with fewer regulatory constraints. They are well suited for long-term disease prevention in an era of genetic testing and increased life expectancy. They also provide additional vehicles for delivering health and wellness. Technologies that address the needs of discovery, development and manufacturing of multi-component botanical therapeutics are emerging. They include computational and bioinformatics approaches, cell based gene expression and high-content screening systems, and phytochemical elicitation and unique plant cultivation / extraction methods designed to optimize the production of bioactives, standardize overall extract composition and assure batch-to-batch product consistency. Nevertheless, multi-component botanical therapeutics carry risks associated with potential interactions with conventional drugs and adverse reactions, which are difficult to detect and diagnose. They face problems of acceptance by the medical community and pharmaceutical industry, safety and efficacy validation, poor standardization and quality control, and difficulties in identifying active ingredients and determining their complex mode(s) of action. Solving these problems will accelerate the merger of grocery stores with pharmacies and agriculture with chemical manufacturing and provide physicians and patients with broader and more individualized choices for disease prevention and treatment.

Medicinal chemistry and pharmacology of genus Tripterygium (Celastraceae)

“…However, other extract components described in this review may, to some degree, augment the pharmacological effects of the extract and modify its pharmacokinetics, bioavailability and toxicological properties. Such potentiating and interfering effects were demonstrated for other multi-component botanical extracts (Raskin and Ripoll, 2004;Lila and Raskin, 2005).…”

Medicinal Plants of Israel: A Model Approach to Enable an Efficient, Extensive, and Comprehensive Field Survey

“…Although the reason for fi nding no diff erence between the families could be the method used or the specifi c tests performed, the main explanation might be elements such as climate, soil, and other environmental conditions that play a greater role than family characteristics in determining the bioactivities observed. It is well known that plants growing in diff erent environments and under diff erent soil conditions will synthesize compounds according to their needs [29,30].…”

Osmotic dehydration of Braeburn variety apples in the production of sustainable food products

“…apple chips, might be an interesting solution in food production, providing an alternative to high-calorie products. Apple attractiveness is related to a favourable content of sugars, acids and biologically valuable ingredients (Raskin and Ripoll, 2004), but the shelf life of this fruit is limited, so appropriate methods of preservation should be chosen to reduce the moisture content and water activity. High temperature and an extended period of drying may cause adverse changes in apples (Mandala et al, 2005), but this effect may be reduced by use of pre-treatment.…”