Case study review: pharmacognosy of complementary and alternative medicines as effective adjuncts in the treatment of mild to moderate hypertension

Abstract

The applications of Complementary and Alternative medicine strategies using naturally occurring plants and plant products have played an important role in the treatment and amelioration of illness and disease for hundreds if not thousands of years in many parts of the world. The practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) includes an extensive nutraceutical formulary with its origins dating back for over 2,000 years, and in North American and other indigenous societies the use of locally available naturally occurring plants contributed to the prevention of numerous nutritional deficiencies including scurvy. In European cultures, and in Central and South American societies the use of natural products also contributed an important role in their health and wellbeing. In the Caribbean, the earliest populations arose from migrating from indigenous peoples from South and Central America with later immigrants arriving from Europe and the African continent, bringing with them the plants and animals that were important to their respective cultures to add to the local environments. This resulted in the abundance of nutraceutical related plants throughout the region, and that the Caribbean now hosts one of the most diverse and extensive arrays of medicinal plants known to exist on the planet. In the present editorial we will review the Pharmacognosy and use of TCM and CAM strategies with practices originating in China and the Caribbean region respectively as compared to allopathic medications on the treatment of mild to moderate intensity hypertension.