Folk Epidemiology Recorded in Palm Leaf Manuscripts of Laos.

In an effort to preserve traditional medicine knowledge and to uncover information about disease patterns and treatment in the Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR), linguistic experts have scanned centuries-old medical palm leaf manuscripts for disease entries. A list of more than 7000 diseases has resulted, shedding valuable light onto the medical history and traditional medicine heritage of the people of Laos, as well as providing an index for faster research into specific diseases and their traditional treatments.

Ethnobotanical approach versus random approach in the search for new bioactive compounds: support of a hypothesis.

Context: Whether natural product drug discovery programs should rely on wild plants collected "randomly" from the natural environment, or whether they should also include plants collected on the basis of use in traditional medicine remains an open question.

Objective: This study analyzes whether plants with ethnomedical uses from Vietnam and Laos have a higher hit rate in bioassay testing than plants collected from a national park in Vietnam with the goal of maximizing taxonomic diversity ("random" collection).

Materials And Methods: All plants were extracted and subjected to bioassay in the same laboratories.

An ethnobotanical survey of medicinal plants of Laos toward the discovery of bioactive compounds as potential candidates for pharmaceutical development.

Context: An ethnobotany-based approach in the selection of raw plant materials to study was implemented.

Objective: To acquire raw plant materials using ethnobotanical field interviews as starting point to discover new bioactive compounds from medicinal plants of the Lao People's Democratic Republic.

Methods: Using semi-structured field interviews with healers in the Lao PDR, plant samples were collected, extracted, and bio-assayed to detect bioactivity against cancer, HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria.

Biological evaluation of plants of Laos used in the treatment of tuberculosis in Lao traditional medicine.

Tuberculosis has existed in Southeast Asia for thousands of years. Many traditional treatments involve herbal remedies. Over time, these traditional treatments have had the chance to become refined based on efficacy and safety.

Study of antimalarial activity of chemical constituents from Diospyros quaesita.

Bioassay-directed fractionation led to the isolation of seven compounds from a sample of the dried leaves, twigs, and branches of Diospyros quaesita Thw. (Ebenaceae). One of the isolates, betulinic acid 3-caffeate (1), showed in vitro antimalarial activity against Plasmodium falciparum clones D(6) (chloroquine-sensitive) and W(2) (chloroquine-resistant) with IC(50) values of 1.