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(maff) wrote in message news:<18510aff.0405100126.4c5fe20e@posting.google.com>...
Herbal Drug Widely Embraced in Treating Resistant Malaria
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/10/health/10MALA.html?pagewanted=all&position=
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
World health agencies are racing to acquire 100 million doses of a
Chinese herbal drug that has proved effective against malaria.
malaria
http://news.google.com/news?q=malaria&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?q=malaria&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=nw&sa=N
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=malaria&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
Is the wakening giant a monster?
http://tinyurl.com/iws6
A Blueprint for the Future
http://tinyurl.com/9vga
What's your point? Artemisinin is a badass molecule from natural
sources. It is not free of side effects. It is not a cure-all. Chinese
herbal medicines have also been found to contain mutagens and toxins:
Journal of Food and Drug Analysis, Vol. 10, No. 4, 2002, Pages 198-211
Pyrrolizidine Alkaloids - Tumorigenic Components in
Chinese Herbal Medicines and Dietary Supplements
PETER P. FU1*, YA-CHEN YANG1, QINGSU XIA1, M.W. CHOU1, Y.Y. CUI1,2 AND
G. LIN2*
1. National Center for Toxicological Research, Jefferson, AR 72079,
U.S.A.
2. Department of Pharmacology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong,
Shatin, Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region
§ This article is not an official U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) or National Toxicology Program (NTP) guidance or policy
statement. No official support or endorsement by the U.S. FDA and NTP
is intended or should be inferred.
(Received: September 18, 2002; Accepted: November 13, 2002)
ABSTRACT
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has long been used for treating
illness in China and other Asian countries, and recently used by
the Western countries in several different ways, either for new drug
development, or as functional foods and dietary supplements.
However, quality assurance and health adverse effects of the herbal
plants have not been well studied. Pyrrolizidine alkaloids, a class of
hepatotoxic and tumorigenic compounds, have been detected in herbal
plants and dietary supplements. In this review, the sources of the
pyrrolizidine alkaloid-containing Chinese herbal plants in China and
the toxicity, genotoxicity, and tumorigenicity of these compounds
are discussed. The metabolic pathways, particularly the activation
pathways leading to genotoxicity, are discussed. Recent mechanistic
studies indicate that pyrrolizidine alkaloids induce tumors via a
genotoxic mechanism mediated by 6,7-dihydro-7-hydroxy-1-hydroxymethyl-
5H-pyrrolizine (DHP)-derived DNA adduct formation. This mechanism may
be general to most carcinogenic pyrrolizidine alkaloids.
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