Abstract
All
through time, humans have used smoke of medicinal plants to cure
illness. To the best of our knowledge, the ethnopharmacological aspects
of natural products' smoke for therapy and health care have not been
studied. Mono- and multi-ingredient herbal and non-herbal remedies
administered as smoke from 50 countries across the 5 continents are
reviewed. Most of the 265 plant species of mono-ingredient remedies
studied belong to Asteraceae (10.6%), followed by Solanaceae (10.2%),
Fabaceae (9.8%) and Apiaceae (5.3%). The most frequent medical
indications for medicinal smoke are pulmonary (23.5%), neurological
(21.8%) and dermatological (8.1%). Other uses of smoke are not exactly
medical but beneficial to health, and include smoke as a preservative or
a repellent and the social use of smoke. The three main methods for
administering smoke are inhalation, which accounts for 71.5% of the
indications; smoke directed at a specific organ or body part, which
accounts for 24.5%; ambient smoke (passive smoking), which makes up the
remaining 4.0%. Whereas inhalation is typically used in the treatment of
pulmonary and neurological disorders and directed smoke in localized
situations, such as dermatological and genito-urinary disorders, ambient
smoke is not directed at the body at all but used as an air purifier.
The advantages of smoke-based remedies are rapid delivery to the brain,
more efficient absorption by the body and lower costs of production.
This review highlights the fact that not enough is known about medicinal
smoke and that a lot of natural products have potential for use as
medicine in the smoke form. Furthermore, this review argues in favor of
medicinal smoke extended use in modern medicine as a form of drug
delivery and as a promising source of new active natural ingredients.
