Researchers at Arya Vaidya Sala’s Centre for Medicinal Plant Research (CMPR) identified two plants with anti-cancer activity. These plants are referred in Ayurvedic texts as dugdhika and laghudugdhika.  Botanists call them Euphorbia thymifolia L. and Euphorbia hirta L. respectively. Phytochemical analysis showed that most of the chemical constituents are common for both species.

Medicinal plant research is drawing attention towards naturally-derived compounds as anticancer agents as they are considered to have less toxic side effects compared to current treatments such as chemotherapy. Many medicinal plants produce naturally occurring secondary metabolites which are being investigated for their anticancer activities.

In Malayalam these two plants share a common name a ‘nilapala’ and are available in the medicinal plant market. The plant is a small branched, prostate annual herb. It is used as a blood purifier, used in bowel complaints, constipation, cough, bronchial asthma etc.

Preliminary studies were conducted in the cells of rats. The study concluded that the selected species comprised of similar phytoconstituents and can be considered for the further studies in cancer research.

Research was under Project Director Dr.Indira Balachandran with lead role of Dr. C.T.Sulaiman who is the Senior Scientist (Phytochemisrty). Follow up studies are being done in collaboration with Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad. Other researchers involved in the work are Dr. T.K.Praveen (JSS College of Pharmacy, Otty), M.Deepak, K.R.Lijini, M.Salman, and Dr.Sadeeshnakumari (all from CMPR).

Study was reviewed and made available in the current issue of ‘Medicine in Omics- Journal of Integrative Biology’ published from New York City.

Study has been You can read the full article through the following link.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.meomic.2022.100018  (click the link; to follow)