Ethnopharmacological Uses, Phytochemistry, and Pharmacological Properties of Croton macrostachyus Hochst. Ex Delile: A Comprehensive Review

Croton macrostachyus is widely used as herbal medicine by the indigenous people of tropical Africa. The potential of C. macrostachyus as herbal medicine, the phytochemistry, and pharmacological properties of its parts used as herbal medicines are reviewed. The extensive literature survey revealed that C. macrostachyus is traditionally used to treat or manage at least 81 human and animal diseases and ailments. The species is used as herbal medicine for diseases and ailments such as abdominal pains, cancer, gastrointestinal disorders, malaria, pneumonia, sexually transmitted infections, skin infections, typhoid, and wounds and as ethnoveterinary medicine. Multiple classes of phytochemicals such as alkaloids, amino acids, anthraquinones, carbohydrates, cardiac glycosides, coumarins, essential oil, fatty acids, flavonoids, phenolic compounds, phlobatannins, polyphenols, phytosteroides, saponins, sterols, tannins, terpenoids, unsaturated sterol, vitamin C, and withanoides have been isolated from the species. Pharmacological studies on C. macrostachyus indicate that it has a wide range of pharmacological activities such as anthelmintic, antibacterial, antimycobacterial, antidiarrhoeal, antifungal, anticonvulsant and sedative, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory, antileishmanial, antioxidant, antiplasmodial, and larvicidal effects. Croton macrostachyus has potential as a possible source of a wide range of pharmaceutical products for the treatment of a wide range of both human and animal diseases and ailments.

• Publication year

  2017

• Venue

  Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine

• Publication date

  2017-10-12

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1155/2017/1694671PMID 29234365PMCID 5660826
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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