Volume 157, 18 November 2014, Pages 268–273
Research Paper
Medicinal plants used for cardiovascular diseases in Navarra and their validation from Official sources
Abstract
Ethnopharmacological relevance
This
paper provides significant ethnopharmacological information on plants
used to treat cardiovascular diseases in Navarra, Spain.
Material and methods
Information
was collected using semi-structured ethnobotanical interviews with 667
informants (mean age 72; 55.47% women, 44.53% men) in 265 locations.
Official sources such as the European Scientific Cooperative on
Phytotherapy (ESCOP), German Commission E, World Health Organization
(WHO), European Medicines Agency (EMA), European Pharmacopoeia (Ph.
Eur.) and Real Farmacopea Española (RFE) monographs were consulted in
order to establish the therapeutic efficacy of the reported uses and to
obtain further details about quality and safety aspects. A literature
review was carried out on the plants that were most frequently cited and
were not the subject of a monograph, using a new tool developed by the
University of Navarra, UNIKA.
Results
A
total of 460 pharmaceutical uses were reported by the informants,
belonging to 90 plant species and 39 families, mainly represented by Urticaceae, Rosaceae, Asteraceae, and Equisetaceae.
The most frequently used parts of the plants were the aerial parts
followed by leaves and flowers. Seventeen out of 90 plants (19%) and 208
out of 460 popular uses (45%) had already been pharmacologically
validated in relation to their therapeutic efficacy and safety aspects.
Conclusions
The authors propose to validate five species for their use in cardiovascular diseases: Rhamnus alaternus L., Potentilla reptans L., Equisetum telmateia Ehrh., Centaurium erythraea Rafn and Parietaria judaica L.
Graphical abstract
Keywords
- Cardiovascular;
- Validation from Official sources;
- Traditional knowledge;
- Ethnopharmacology;
- Navarra
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