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Plant Source Foods
Published in Chuong Pham-Huy, Bruno Pham Huy, Food and Lifestyle in Health and Disease, 2022
Chuong Pham-Huy, Bruno Pham Huy
The list of chemicals obtained from plants and used as medicines is extensive. They are often secondary metabolites of plants including different chemical groups such as flavonoids, terpenoids, alkaloids, glycosides, phenolics, and so on. They are used in modern therapy as well as in traditional medicine (304–306). For example, quinine, an anti-malaria alkaloid, is extracted from the cinchona barks. Digoxin and digitoxin, two cardio-tonic glycosides, are isolated from the plants Digitalis lanata and purpurea, respectively. Morphine and codeine, two alkaloids used as strong analgesic and antitussive drugs, respectively, are obtained from the opium poppy latex. Cocaine, an alkaloid used as local anesthetic, is isolated from Erythroxylum coca leaves. Atropine, an alkaloid used as anticholinergic, is obtained from Atropa belladonna leaves. Paclitaxel or TaxolR, a diterpenoid with strong anticancer activity found in recent years, is isolated from Taxus brevifolia and bacata, a Pacific yew. Despite their toxicity, these drugs are still used today because of their high therapeutic efficacy (304). Other compounds often present in our habitual foods such as menthol from mint leaves, theobromine and theophylline from cocoa and tea, beta-glucan from oat and yeast, and so on, also have therapeutic activity. They are both food and medicine.
Scarlet fever and belladonna
Published in Dinesh Kumar Jain, Homeopathy, 2022
Now we are analyzing treatment of scarlet fever by belladonna. Belladonna produces fever in healthy individuals and it is effective in scarlet fever as told by Hahnemann and which also supported a law of similarity, framed by Hahnemann. Today we know that belladonna drugs are widely distributed in nature, especially in the solanaceae plants. Atropa belladonna yields mainly the alkaloid atropine.
Von Economo’s encephalitis
Published in Avindra Nath, Joseph R. Berger, Clinical Neurovirology, 2020
Anticholinergic medications were often beneficial, well tolerated, and tolerated in high doses [1]. These were the chief means of treatment until the availability of l-dopa. Mainly in the German literature there were multiple reports of the alkaloids, Harmin or Banisterine [91]. They chiefly affected the rigor and the hypokinesia with improvement in voluntary motor activity, strength and duration. Tremor was not affected [92]. Therapeutic effect on patients was variable. Long term treatment did not seem to have a negative effect on response [93]. Hyascin, which had a similar effect though with less dramatic improvement, made in general the patients subjective well-being better, so it was often used concomitantly [94]. Other authors achieved some therapeutical effect with high doses of Atropa belladonna, also known in the literature as the “Bulgarian treatment” [95].
Atropine in topical formulations for the management of anterior and posterior segment ocular diseases
Published in Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery, 2021
Ines García Del Valle, Carmen Alvarez-Lorenzo
Atropine is an alkaloid extracted from Atropa belladonna (deadly nightshade), Datura stramonium (jimsonweed), and Hyoscyamus niger (henbane) plants that belong to the Solanaceae family. It is synthetized in the roots, with an alkaloid content that runs between 0.01% and 3% [2]. Atropine acts as a competitive, nonselective muscarinic acetylcholine receptor antagonist, affecting the central and peripheral nervous system by blocking receptors in exocrine glands, smooth and cardiac muscle, ganglia and intramural neurons [3]. According to different studies conducted on animals and humans, this alkaloid is widely distributed in tissues [4] and has a binding affinity constant in the range of 0.4–0.7 nM [5] for all five subtypes of muscarinic acetylcholine receptors (M1 to M5) [6,7]. Therapeutically, atropine has a wide range of indications [2,3]. It is used as premedication for anesthesia and surgical procedures, as antisialagogue to inhibit salivation and excessive secretions, and as antivagal agent to prevent cholinergic effects during surgery [8]. Furthermore, this compound is able to reverse muscle relaxant effects [9].
A Phenomenological Study: Exploring the Meaning of Spirituality in Long-term Recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous
Published in Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 2021
Kevin McInerney, Ainslea Cross
From its inception, A.A. has viewed AUD from a holistic perspective, by considering the impact that excessive alcohol consumption can have on the individual physically, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually (Kurtz, 2002), placing a particular emphasis on the spiritual dimension, referring to it as a “spiritual malady” (Alcoholics Anonymous World Services [AAWS], 2001, p. 64). A.A.’s emphasis on the spiritual domain was first conceptualized after the post-detoxification experience of A.A.’s founder Bill Wilson, which he had interpreted as a transcendental event. Wilson’s epiphanous moment, however, may have been of a hallucinatory nature, induced by either alcoholic delirium tremens (Markel, 2010), or Atropa belladonna (deadly nightshade), known to have hallucinogenic properties (Bevacqua & Hoffman, 2010; Markel, 2010); the belladonna regime was part of the treatment in 1934, in Towns Hospital, New York, where Wilson was being treated. Influenced by William James’ (1985) The varieties of religious experience, and by Carl Jung, with whom he corresponded and credited as being instrumental in the foundation of A.A. (Speaking of Jung, 2015), Wilson was convinced his experience, which he described as being “caught up into an ecstasy” (AAWS, 1957, p. 62–63), was essential to recovery. Wilson later became aware that not everybody had such transformational and life-changing experiences, so in order to make A.A. more inclusive, he reconsidered his original position and proposed that a personal concept of spirituality, a “spiritual awakening”, could lead to a change in personality, “sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism” (AAWS, 2001, p. 567).
Prevalence of Stimulant, Hallucinogen, and Dissociative Substances Detected in Biological Samples of NPS-Intoxicated Patients in Italy
Published in Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 2021
Pietro Papa, Antonella Valli, Marcello Di Tuccio, Eleonora Buscaglia, Elena Brambilla, Giulia Scaravaggi, Mariapina Gallo, Carlo Alessandro Locatelli
Tropane alkaloids. Atropine and scopolamine were identified in 38 cases (50% of hallucinogen positive cases) and in 35% of positive cases both molecules were present. This finding would suggest the use of psychoactive plants/herbs (i.e., Atropa belladonna) that contain both alkaloids. Positivity for other NPS emerged only once, in a urine positive for atropine and MDPV. Positive cases were equally distributed within the considered period.