Abstract

A REVIEW ON SOME MEDICINAL PLANTS AS NATURAL ANTICANCER AGENTS

Naushad Ahmad*, Mohd. Faarooq Khan and Dr. Raju Chaukse

ABSTRACT

India is the largest producer of medicinal plants and is rightly called the “Botanical garden of the World”. The medicinal plants, besides having natural therapeutic values against various diseases, also provide high quality of food and raw materials for livelihood. Considerable works have been done on these plants to treat cancer, and some plant products have been marketed as anticancer drugs, based on the traditional uses and scientific reports. These plants may promote host resistance against infection by re-stabilizing body equilibrium and conditioning the body tissues. Several reports describe that the anticancer activity of medicinal plants is due to the presence of antioxidants in them. In fact, the medicinal plants are easily available, cheaper and possess no toxicity as compared to the modern (allopathic) drugs. Hence, this review article contains 66 medicinal plants, which are the natural sources of anticancer agents. Globally cancer is a disease which severely effects the human population. There is a constant demand for new therapies to treat and prevent this life-threatening disease. Scientific and research interest is drawing its attention towards nat- urally-derived compounds as they are considered to have less toxic side effects compared to current treatments such as chemotherapy. The Plant Kingdom produces naturally occurring secondary metabolites which are being investigated for their anticancer activities leading to the development of new clinical drugs. With the success of these compounds that have been developed into staple drugs for cancer treatment new technologies are emerging to develop the area further. New technologies include nanoparticles for nano-medicines which aim to enhance anticancer activities of plant-derived drugs by controlling the release of the compound and investigating new methods for administration. This review dis- cusses the demand for naturally-derived compounds from medicinal plants and their properties which make them targets for potential anticancer treatments.

Keywords: Cancer, medicinal plants, natural anticancer agents, antioxidants.