What is it about?
Aromatic plants have been used as natural medicines since prehistoric times. They are currently mainly utilized for essential oil extraction and are widely used in cosmetics, flavoring and fragrance, spices, pesticides, repellent and herbal beverages. Several medicinal plants have shown promise for the treatment various diseases including cancer. However, only a handful studies are available on aromatic plants, especially in terms of radioprotection. The present review focuses on certain medicinally important aromatic plants with special reference to their radioprotective effects.
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Why is it important?
Thus, the detrimental effects of radiation-induced alterations in biologic systems via reactive oxygen species generation play a crucial role in maintenance of metabolic homeostasis in the body. Therefore, any disparity in homeostasis results in oxidative stress [38],which can be trounced by additional provision of naturally occurring, plant based antioxidants . It has been shown that the oxidation process could be halted by antioxidants by adopting various strategies such as scavenging, chelating or transferring hydrogen atoms . It has been speculated that the radioprotectors must have radical-scavenging properties along with antioxidant function; however, all antioxidants do not provide radioprotection. Radioprotectors minimize or reduce the radiation-induced damage to normal tissues and need to be present before or at the time of radiation exposure for its protective efficacy. In recent years, investigations have demonstrated the importance and usefulness of aromatic plants for their radioprotective effects and ability to be employed for modification of oxidative insult due to radiation.
Perspectives
The enhanced adverse effects of synthetic drugs and antibiotics has paved way toward utilization of natural products of plant origin in recent years in developed as well as developing countries. The present review explored the protection against radiation at cellular damage of approximately thirty aromatic plant extracts or plant-derived compounds. Most of the aromatic plant extracts or plant products have shown significant radioprotection in different model systems such as in vivo, ex vivo and/or in vitro for assessment of radiation-induced damage. The radical scavenging and antioxidant properties such as reduction in radiation-induced lipid peroxidation are some of the notable characteristics of aromatic plant extracts studied in various models of radiation insult. In most of the studies, it has been shown that while protecting against the detrimental effects of radiation, it also had capacity to significant increase survival rates in small animals exposed to radiation. Results of such studies point at possible application during radiotherapy as well as the possibility of finding application in treatment for victims of nuclear plant accidents or leakage, or radiation terrorism. Use of aromatic plants and their products has gained momentum globally during recent times with wide applications in the herbal drug industry. Natural resources such as wastelands and forests could serve as reservoir for the same. However, with the increasing burden on natural resources, alternatively, introduction of crops through cropping systems could help out to great extent with a check on activity including chemical composition. Also, the scientific community must be encouraged to focus studies to screen more and more aromatic compounds of plant origin for their different bioactivities, including radioprotection, and to explore the molecular mechanisms involved for the same.
RAVINDRA SAMARTHA
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This page is a summary of: Medicinally important aromatic plants with radioprotective activity, Future Science OA, September 2017, Future Science,
DOI: 10.4155/fsoa-2017-0061.
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