The Inclusion and Selection of Medicinal Plants in Traditional Pharmacopoeias—Evidence in Support of the Diversification Hypothesis

Abstract

The Inclusion and Selection of Medicinal Plants in Traditional Pharmacopoeias-Evidence in Support of the Diversification Hypothesis. An ethnobotanical study with phytochemical analyses was undertaken to examine the medicinal plants used by residents of a small rural community in northeastern Brazil. The present work tested two ideas that attempt to explain the inclusion and selection of medicinal plants in a given culture: the diversification hypothesis and the concept of versatility. The study involved 101 people and used semistructured interviews. A total of 61 plants were selected, including 25 exotic and 36 native species. Plants were classified according to their habit and analyzed for their phytochemical components. In addition, the relative importance (RI) of these plants was calculated, and a chemical diversity index (CDI) was created and applied to each of the species. Exotic and native plants were found to have significantly different occurrences of certain classes of compounds; this result supports the diversification hypothesis. It was therefore concluded that exotic plants are included in traditional pharmacopoeias to fill therapeutic vacancies that native plants cannot satisfy.

Dynamics of traditional knowledge of medicinal plants in a rural community in the Brazilian semi-arid region

“…The community exhibits poorly developed commercial infrastructure (only a butcher shop and bars are present in the community) and has a public telephone, electricity, and public transport to facilitate access to the downtown area. There are no paved streets, nor is there a water distribution or sewer system (Alencar et al, 2009(Alencar et al, , 2010Araújo et al, 2008;Lins-Neto et al, 2010;Santos et al, 2009).…”

Potencial terapêutico e uso de plantas medicinais em uma área de Caatinga no estado do Ceará, nordeste do Brasil

“…A grande contribuição destes trabalhos é verificada nas diversas pesquisas que ressaltam as práticas de uso e sugestões de hipóteses que tentam explicar os sistemas médicos tradicionais das populações do semiárido nordestino (Almeida et al, 2005;Albuquerque et al, 2007a;Albuquerque, 2010;Roque et al, 2010;Alencar et al, 2010;Júnior et al, 2011). Neste caso, é interessante listar e explicar como são utilizadas as espécies medicinais que compõem áreas semiáridas ainda pouco exploradas, tornando-se necessário, principalmente, para subsidiar posteriores estudos químicos e farmacológicos.…”

Why is change feared? Exotic species in traditional pharmacopoeias

“…Recent studies have questioned this idea and claimed that exotic species entrance on a pharmacopoeia is mostly to fill blanches not filled by native plants (Albuquerque 2006;Alencar et al 2010). Here I argue that, no matter if they replace or not native species, the exotic plants entrance in a pharmacopoeia is a natural evolutionary phenomenon and scientists need to be cautious when attributing negative or positive values to it, since this valuation depends on the instance being analyzed.…”

“…The first ethnobotanical interpretations to this phenomenon have one thing in common: the (implicitly or explicitly) negative valuation of the process, by stating that exotic plants-dominated pharmacopoeias are common in communities that are suffering acculturation or knowledge erosion (see Alencar et al 2010). Recent studies have questioned this idea and claimed that exotic species entrance on a pharmacopoeia is mostly to fill blanches not filled by native plants (Albuquerque 2006;Alencar et al 2010).…”

“…For example, if there is no adequate native species to treat Malaria, an exotic species will be likely to take this vague space. In fact, the first study to test this hypothesis (Alencar et al 2010) found that, for a community placed in the Brazilian Caatinga, some therapeutic indications were treated only by exotic species and from a phytochemical point of view some compounds found on exotic plants were not present in autochthonous species. Medeiros (2012) tested the diversification hypothesis on local, regional and national scales, but considering only the utilitarian (not chemical) perspective.…”