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    Perspective of dietetic and antioxidant medicinal plants
    Perspective of dietetic and antioxidant medicinal plants
    Perspective of dietetic and antioxidant medicinal plants
    Ebook383 pages1 hour

    Perspective of dietetic and antioxidant medicinal plants

    By Dilip De Sarker, Manas Ranjan Saha and Subrata Saha

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    Modern food habits, vis-a-vis lifestyle, has started taking its toll in the form of obesity, depression, auto-immune diseases, spondylosis, arthritis, cardiac disorders, insomnia, cancer, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, osteoporosis and many other ailments. Keeping pace with the demand for lifestyle food, food companies are producing more and more synthetic food or processed food. This is one dimensional food, i.e. food for food's sake. We are on the verge of forgetting that food has other roles to serve in our body, mind and soul too. Food has other dimensions to act, i.e. to serve as medicine as well. The concept of functional food or nutraceuticals, though it sounds new, has its roots in the traditional food habits of great cultures like Indian, Chinese, Mediterranean or Greek, which have survived thousands of years of trials and errors. Hippocrates (c. 460 c. 370 BC), the great Greek philosopher, had said
    Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food
    Therefore, we should go back to basics and eat only food that possesses drug properties as well. A host of food plants are available around us which have the capacity to alleviate several modern day life-style diseases. The traditional sak , sabjee and whole grain foods are to name a few. The line between drug tablets and nutraceuticals is rapidly becoming narrower. The nutrients in cereals have shown to possess the property of reducing the risk of diabetes, coronary heart dysfunction, tumour incidence, higher blood cholesterol etc. The garlic has immunomodulatory function among other innumerable nutraceuticals. The sages of Rigveda have said,
    Plant! Thus I hail thee, the Divine Mother of mankind. - Rigveda 10.97.4.
    The authors in this book have tried their best to give glimpses of information about the medicinal plants surrounding us that have dietetic as well as antioxidant properties and tried to answer the moot question of sufferings of modern society.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNotion Press
    Release dateMay 2, 2015
    ISBN9789384878955
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      Book preview

      Perspective of dietetic and antioxidant medicinal plants - Dilip De Sarker

      Perspective of dietetic and antioxidant

      medicinal plants

      Dilip De Sarker

      Manas Ranjan Saha

      Subrata Saha

      Notion Press

      5 Muthu Kalathy Street, Triplicane,

      Chennai - 600 005

      First Published by Notion Press 2015

      Copyright © Dilip De Sarker, 2015

      All Rights Reserved.

      ISBN: 978-93-84878-95-5

      This book has been published in good faith that the work of the author is original. All efforts have been taken to make the material error-free. However, the author and the publisher disclaim the responsibility.

      No Part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, Xerox or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the authors.

      Contents

      Title

      Copyright

      1. Foreword

      2. Acknowledgements

      3. Introduction

      4. Abbreviations

      5. A Note on Biodiversity and Endemism

      6. Description of Plants A-Z

      7. Bibliography

      8. References Cited

      9. About the Authors

      10. Figures

      11. Index to English names

      12. Index to Vernacular names

      University of Kalyani

      FACULTY OF SCIENCE

      Foreword

      The cultural heritage of any country or society is imbibed in the food habit of the people of that country or society. India with its diverse culture is no exception. However, with the advent of global network of fast­food companies the great heritage of diverse food habit is in stake. Our grandmothers used to prepare tasteful food (‘Sak’ and ‘Sabji’) using local resources. Such traditional preparations are our heritage and continued to so. These food in our regular dishes contributed vitamin, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, antioxidants and immunomodulators that we know today. On the other side these herbs are available in the wild state and uncultivated.

      Notwithstanding the downfall of rich recipe heritage, the poorest of the poor still collect, prepare and consume such food in the face of habitat destruction, loss of plant species and environment degradation.

      Dr. De Sarker, Associate Professor in Botany, Raiganj University has been working in the field of Botany for last 35 years, whom I know from his graduation days. This book is unique of its kind, bears the endevour of more than 20 years by his research group. This book entitled "Perspective of Dietetic and antioxidant medicinal plants", published by The Notion Press, an International publisher, portrays the medicinal uses of more than 300 important plants, their antioxidant potentiality and distribution status in the Upper Gangetic West Bengal. Folk use of each plant has been beautifully written. Such publication is a genuine contribution to our rich heritage. The book also describes the current status of plant exploration and extinction pressure. I am sure that the book will find an important place in dietetics, horticulture, medical botany and pharmacology.

      (S.C. Santra)

      Acknowledgements

      The Senior author likes to express his indebtedness to the following persons, institutions, organizations, business houses, as the instances may, for their invaluable help.

      Staff of the AASM garden for medicinal plants, Raiganj, West Bengal, and Sri Tanmoy Choudhury and Sri Manas Ranjan Saha for the basic work.

      Late Smt. Renuka De Sarker, my mother, for sharing her expertise on traditional knowledge.

      United States Department of Agriculture data base for information related to nutrition.

      State Council for Science and Technology, Govt. of West Bengal, Bikash Bhaban, Kolkata.

      All the scientists whose tireless work and references were used in various aspects of the book.

      Microsoft Corporation, WA, USA for using the WINDOWS softwares.

      Google Corporation, Mountain View, CA, USA. For internet Browser and G-mail.

      Dr. Sreejata De Sarker , my wife for her inspiration throughout the work.

      Ms. Gracy Preety Gomes , the Project Manager & Mr. Naveen Valsakumar, The Co-founder, and other staff members of Notion Press, Chennai for bringing out this publication.

      Prof. S.C. Santra, Kalyani University, West Bengal for writing the foreword.

      Prof. S.C. Roy, Department of Botany, North Bengal University ,Kabiraj Uttam Chakraborty, Sri Debjoy Bhattacharjee, Sri Alok Kumar Sarkar, Late Sri Souren Nag for furnishing the traditional knowledge.

      Library & Department of Botany, Raiganj University, West Bengal providing the working place.

      Introduction

      The knowledge of curing various human ailments using available plants is perhaps as old as to the dawn of human civilization. It cannot be denied that human races survived through the ages overcoming various diseases and ailments using useful plants and as such the knowledge gathered throughout the thousands of years, is our present legacy. It is our duty and obligation too to gather such knowledge if now still left undiscovered and disseminate them for the present and future mankind to have a better peaceful life.

      Rural India relies on local traditional medical practitioner for various ailments. Such treatments are ill organized. Some of the local medical practitioners called as Kabiraj /Baidya- who uses his experiences and inherited knowledge of medicinal plants from several sources – mostly from family knowledge. Tribal healers often use medical knowledge derived from earlier generations – which is quite different from Āyurvedic medical knowledge. Thus there is distinct knowledge - dichotomy between Āyurvedic knowledge and knowledge of medicinal plants and their uses by tribals of various catagories. Āyurveda means – the Knowledge (Veda) of the life span (Ayus). It teaches how one may utilize the span of life apportion by nature. In other terms Āyurveda, an ancient science of life is deeply rooted in Indian culture. Most commonly Āyurveda has been applied related to medical matters and thus it is justified to say it as medicine provided to the various ailments. Meulenbeld(1990) observes, "The classical treatises on Āyurveda clearly states that this science can be applied to all living organisms.

      The Charak Samhita begins with the verse- athato dirghajiviyiyamadhyam vyakhyasyamah//(Charak Samhita, Su,1.1)

      So then we shall explain the lesson about Longevity. It transpires from this verse and etymologically Āyurveda signifies the knowledge of longevity. The Indian indigenous system of medical treatment has a long history of about 3000 yrs. Where Vedic peoples had expertise for utilizing local plants. The ancient system of treatment could be distinctly divided into medicine (Charak Samhita-1000 BC – 100 AD) and Surgery- (Sushrata Samhita- 800-700 BC). However, this system of medical practice confronted with the arrival of colonial medicine. Today’s medical treatments are almost the contribution of western medicine knowledge. Ancient medicine was not solely based on empiricism and this is evident from the fact that some medicinal plants which were used in ancient times still have their place in modern therapy (Das and Mondal, 2012) . Herbal medicine is still the mainstay of about 70- 80% of the Indian population, and the major part of the traditional therapy involves the use of plant extract and their active constituents.(Akerele,1993).A large number of Wild Plants and their purified extracts have shown beneficial therapeutic potentials due to the presence of Antioxidant compounds, phenolics and flavonoids etc. There is extensive evidence to implicate free radicals in the development of degenerative diseases. Almost all organisms possess antioxidant defenses that protect against oxidative damage and numerous damage removal and repair enzymes to remove or repair damaged molecules.

      However, the natural antioxidant mechanisms can be inefficient, hence dietary intake of antioxidant compounds become important. Although, synthetic antioxidants, such as butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and tertiary butyl hydroquinone (TBHQ) have been widely applied in food processing, they have been reassessed for their possible toxic and carcinogenic components formed during degradation. In addition, it has been suggested that there is an inverse relationship between dietary intake of antioxidant rich foods and incidence of number of human diseases. Therefore, search into the isolation of natural antioxidant sources is important. The survey on naturally growing plants (eatable) and folk use of plants of minor food of this district has been done so far and a preliminary analysis revels that there are about 40 plants are in regular use as food adjunct by the local ethnic peoples. Some of the plants are regularly used, some are moderately used and some are occasionally used. These plants constitute a major food source for some poor habitants. Most of the plants are regularly sold in local market and therefore a source of income to the downtrodden. Better understanding of these plants will throw light on conservation, utilization and nutrition aspects.

      Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (World Food Summit, 1996). India’s high economic growth rate in the past decade has not been fully reflected in the health status of its people, with 22 per cent of its population undernourished. According to the

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