Anti-Cancer properties of herbs in cell culture system

Abstract

During the process of evolution, nature created all kind of foods on earth which are essential in maintaining healthy life. It gave us the vitamins, minerals, herbs, anti-oxidants, plant extracts and other nutrients the body needs to prevent illness and maintain healthy condition. There are herbs which have been truly a great blessing to mankind because of their versatility in providing medical benefits. There is a growing awareness of well-controlled research studies, but still do not know all of the short-term and long-term health benefits and risk of many herbs. Himalayan region is the great source of these herbs. There are many remote areas in the Indian Himalayas that contain a rich traditional knowledge on the use of medicinal plant. Patwadangar near Nainital, in Uttarakhand, is one such remote area which possesses a rich medicinal plant diversity and traditional knowledge. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim to document traditional treatment of cancer by using the medicinal plant found in this region alone or in combination with Panchgavya/Cowpathy products. To identify, collect and process the extracts of the medicinal plants [Chenopodium album, Bryophyllum calycium, Chlorophytum borivilium, Camellia sinensis, Tylophora indica (Anantmul), Curcuma amada, Urtica dioica, Rhododendron arboretum (Burans), Rubus ellipticus (Hisalu), Tinospora cordifolia, Myrica esculenta (Kafal), Solanum xanthocarpum, Agave americana (Ram ban), Berberis aristata (Kilmora), Thuja orientalis (Morpankhi), Cedrus deodara (Devdar), Aloe barbadensis (Aloe vera) and Ocimum sanctum] from Patwadangar area and to study the anti-cancerous effect of these plant extracts in BHK-21 cells. There were reduction in cell growth to the tune of 15-95% as measured by cytopathology and MTT assay of various plant extracts at different concentrations.