The Ethnopharmacological and Nutraceutical Relevance of Launaea taraxacifolia (Willd.) Amin ex C. Jeffrey.

The Ethnopharmacological and Nutraceutical Relevance of Launaea taraxacifolia (Willd.) Amin ex C. Jeffrey. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2018;2018:7259146 Authors: Adinortey MB, Sarfo JK, Kwarteng J, Adinortey CA, Ekloh W, Kuatsienu LE, Kwadwo Nyarko A Abstract Launaea taraxacifolia (Willd.) Amin ex C. Jeffrey is a herb found mostly in tropical Africa. The plant, commonly found in West Africa, is used in the management of many diseases including cardiovascular, respiratory, haematological, endocrine, and metabolic diseases in Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, Serra Leone, and Senegal. This piece provides comprehensive and updated information on the traditional uses, phytochemical constituents, and pharmacological and toxicological information available on Launaea taraxacifolia to support its medicinal uses and also unearth knowledge gaps for future studies. An electronic literature search using search engines, namely, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, and PubMed, was carried out to obtain information on the plant. Both common and scientific names of the plant were used as keywords for the search process. This paper captured information on Launaea taraxacifolia from 1985 to 2018. The search revealed that the leaves of the plant possess nutritional/pharmacological effects on diseases such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, cancer, malaria, bacterial infections, and arthritis. The leaf has been shown to be a rich source of phytoconstituents su...
Source: Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine - Category: Complementary Medicine Tags: Evid Based Complement Alternat Med Source Type: research