Abstract
Vernonia amygdalina Delile (VA), family Asteraceae or Compositae is plants that is consumed locally as food and serve important ethnomedicinal uses. It grows throughout tropical Africa to a height of about 1 – 5 metres and it is indigenous to many West African Countries. Many parts of the plants are useful, they are used locally for the treatment of fever, Stomach disorder, jaundice, worm infestation, constipation, malaria, hiccups, kidney problems, amoebic dysentery, schistosomiasis, cough, wounds, diabetes, laxative, veneral diseases and other bacterial and protozoal infection. This review examines, discusses and summarizes the current evidence of ethnomedicinal uses, phytochemistry and biological activities as well as toxicity of this species with a view to identifying its therapeutic relations and possible contradictions, inconsistencies and gaps that may have arisen in the research literature. This review is based on literature study on journals and books of scientific origin from library, both manual and electronic sources such as PubMed, Science Direct, Elsevier, ACS, google Scholar etc using various combinations of search words. V. amagdalina is a tropical plant with a lot of interesting biological and medicinal uses. The plants are relatively not toxic, safe for consumption and possess a great potential as pharmaceutical leads for the treatment of diseases and beyond. This review will stimulate further research in the pharmacology and phytochemistry of V. amagdalina.
Highlights
The Asteraceae (Compositae) are herbs, shrubs, or less commonly trees and is arguably the plants largest family of flowering and has approximately 1,620 genera and more than 23,600 species [1]
It grows predominantly in tropical Africa especially in Nigeria, Zimbabwe and South Africa and it is domesticated in parts of West Africa [3,4,5]
Alawa et al reported a non-significant effect of methanol extract of Vernonia amygdalina Delile (VA) in a 30-day treatment of rats on red blood cells (RBC) counts and other indices such as Heamoglobin concentration (Hb), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean corpuscular haemoglobin (MCH) and mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration (MCHC) which are related to it, this is in relation to the control [96]
Summary
The Asteraceae (Compositae) are herbs, shrubs, or less commonly trees and is arguably the plants largest family of flowering and has approximately 1,620 genera and more than 23,600 species [1]. Antifertility: Recent report indicated that 95% ethanol crude extract of the leaves of VA possesses an in vitro anti-implantation effect at doses of 0.385, 0.5 and 1.0 g/kg body weight of mice in isolated mouse uterus compared to control agonist Acetylcholine (1 g/kg).
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