PRIMARY QUALITIES IN PHYTOTHERAPY AND TRADITIONAL MEDICINES

Objectives: The significance of principles of traditional medicines in research protocols are emphasized by World Health Organization. Primary qualities, traditionally referred to as “hotâ€, “coldâ€, “dry†and “wetâ€, are fundamental concepts of many medical traditions of antiquity such as Persian, Chinese, Greek, and Indian. In Humoral-based traditional medicines, these qualities are regulating factors and act in dynamic balance to maintain health. Therefore, understanding of the primary qualities of body humors and drugs is decisive for treatment, self-care and prevention of diseases in many traditional medicines. The main goals of this study are to consider the relationships among primary qualities and botanical or phytochemical profiles of the traditional Iranian Medicinal herbs.Method: A number of 489 medicinal plants were accommodated with proposed scientific names and the corresponding primary qualities were extracted from Old Persian pharmacopeias. Based on literatures, two data sets screened for statistical study. To ensure consistency and similarity of screened samples, they were examined by Chi-square (χ2) test. Influences of botanical families on primary qualities were studied by screening of 339 plants in 29 botanical families tested with χ2 test. In the second stage, major phytochemicals of 192 herbs were categorized based on existence of 23 groups of phytochemicals and a model based on traditional medicine concepts was made using logistic regression.Results: Statistical outcomes revealed that although a few botanical families tend to correlate in specific primary qualities, most others displayed no significant relationship. The proposed phytochemical model was able to estimate the relationship between primary qualities and phytochemical classes in more than 77% of the cases. The findings were in accordance with literatures.Conclusion: The botanical family classification is not an empirically acceptable indicator of primary qualities in medicinal plants. On the other hand, phytochemical profile of a plant is an authentic indicator of primary qualities

Brief History of pharmacy ethics in Iran

Pharmacy is an ethical profession. The aim of this study was to investigate the history of pharmacy ethics in Iran. In the ancient Persia, medical and pharmaceutical ethics were related to religious rules, and everybody had to respect it. The ethical rules were similar to some current pharmacy ethics. During Islamic era, the pharmacy ethics were edited according to the Islamic rules. After introduction of European pharmacy into Iran, the pharmacy ethics did not change and was regarded as before. By presentation of bioethics and medical ethics in recent years, new activities are carried out for better manipulation of their rules in health professions including pharmacy

A High-Performance Liquid Chromatographic Assay for the Determination of Losartan in Plasma

A rapid and sensitive HPLC method was developed for determination of losartan in plasma. Losartan was extracted from plasma by a two-step extraction procedure using chloroform as extracting solvent in acidic medium. HPLC analysis was performed on a cyano reversed-phase column using phosphate buffer (pH 4.3), acetonitrile (750:250, v/v) as mobile phase with a flow rate of 0.9 mL/min. Sodium diclofenac was selected as internal standard. Excellent linearity between the peak area ratios and losartan concentrations over the range of 2-200 ng/mL of plasma was observed. The limit of determination with UV detection at 225 nm, with a CV < 5% was 2 ng/mL in 500 μL of plasma sample. The assay was rapid, safe and reliable for use in pharmacokinetic studies of losartan in human being

Stereospecific Determination of Mefloquine in Whole Blood by HPLC

Mefloquine, as a racemic mixture, is used for the treatment and prophylaxis of malaria. Stereoselective pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic differences has been observed for mefloquine. In this study a modified stereoselective HPLC method is presented for determination of mefloquine (MFQ) enantiomers in whole blood. The assay involved liquid-liquid extraction of MFQ from biological fluids with methyl tert-butyl ether in the presence of sodium hydroxide and derivatization of the residue by (+)-1-(9-fluorenyl) ethyl chloroformate (FLEC) as chiral derivatizing reagent. Separation of the resulting diastereomers was performed on a Novapack C18 reversed-phase cartridge column using acetonitrile, water, glacial acetic acid (730:270:0.7, v/v/v) as the mobile phase with a flow-rate of 1 mL/min. Using 500 μ L of whole blood, the limit of determination was 50 ng/mL with fluorescence detection with excitation at 263 nm and emission at 475 nm for both enantiomers. This method is comparatively simple and practical for the determination of small amounts of mefloquine enantiomers

Spectrophotometric Determination of Tropicamide in Bulk and Pharmaceutical Formulations: Determination of tropicamide

Asimple and sensitive extractive spectrophotometric method is described fordetermination of tropicamide. The method is based on the reaction of tropicamideand bromocresol green. The ion-paired colored complex was extracted withchloroform at pH 3. The extracted complex showed maximum absorbance at 423nm. The complex was stable up to 2 days and obeyed Beer's law over theconcentration ranges of 1.32-100.81 μg/ml. No significant interference was observedfrom the excipients, coloring and flavoring agents commonly used in the tropicamidepharmaceutical preparations. The proposed method was applied successfully fordetermination of tropicamide in commercial eye drop dosage forms

An Ex-Vivo Study on the Stereoselective Accumulation of Mefloquine Enantiomers in Human Blood Fractions: Accumulation of mefloquine in blood

Mefloquine (MFQ), as a racemic mixture is used for the prophylaxis and treatment of malaria. Stereoselective pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic differences have been observed for MFQ. In the present study, the human blood was spiked with racemic MFQ. The concentration of MFQ enantiomers in various blood fractions including packed erythrocyte layer, platelet rich plasma and platelet poor plasma was determined. The results showed that the ratio of (+)-MFQ was about 1.5 time higher than (-)-MFQ in packed erythrocyte layer. Results obtained from the separated erythrocytes spiked with racemic MFQ showed no significantdifference between the enantiomer concentrations. It can be concluded that the stereoselective accumulation of MFQ enantiomers in erythrocytes might be in relation to protein binding or the presence of other blood cells

A Stability-Indicating HPLC Method for the Determination of Memantine Hydrochloride in Dosage Forms through Derivatization with 1-Fluoro-2,4-dinitrobenzene

Memantine is chemically a tricyclic amine and is used for Parkinson\u27s disease and movement disorders. Although several HPLC methods with different derivatization reagents have been developed for the determination of memantine in biological fluids, there are some complications which limit the use of these methods in routine analysis of memantine in in vitro tests. We established a simple, sensitive, precise, and accurate HPLC method for the quantification of memantine in dosage forms. Pre-column derivatization of memantine was performed with 1-fluoro-2,4-dinitrobenzene and the reaction product was separated on a Nova-Pak C18 column. A mixture of acetonitrile and sodium dihydrogenphosphate (pH 2.5; 0.05 M) (70: 30, v/v) was used as the mobile phase. UV detection was performed at 360 nm. Forced degradation studies were performed on a powdered tablet sample of memantine hydro-chloride using acidic (0.1 M hydrochloric acid), basic (0.1 M sodium hydroxide), oxidative (10% hydrogen peroxide), thermal (105°C), photolytic, and humidity conditions. Good linearity (r2=0.999) was obtained over the range of 1–12 μg mL−1 of memantine hydrochloride with acceptable within-day and between-day precision values in the range of 0.05–0.95%. The proposed method was used for the assay determination and dissolution rate study of memantine dosage forms with excellent specificity

In vitro activity of mefloquine and its enantiomers against Plasmodium falciparum

The in vitro activity of rac-mefloquine hydrochloride and its pure enantiomers was tested against a chloroquine-resistant (PF.IBS2) strain of Plasmodium falciparum . The parasite isolated from Iranian patients was cultured in vitro by the candle jar method described by Tranger and Jensen and was exposed to the racemic mefloquine or its enantiomers over the concentration range of 10-9 to 10-4 M. Neither rac-mefloquine nor the enantiomers showed antiparasitic activity at 10-9 M. The (+)-mefloquine was more potent than the (-)-mefloquine and the racemate by IC50 equal to 1.17 μM in comparison to 4.09 μM

The Story of Stoechas: from Antiquity to the Present Day

The information about herbs’ medicinal properties is ample in traditional manuscripts, some of which are of value even in modern medicine. However, it is not usually easy to put it into practice. Identifying traditional herbs and determining their scientific names are very challenging, calling for many ethnopharmacological studies. One significant herb in traditional medicine is stoechas. Its medical properties are found in traditional manuscripts, but the true origin of the herb is not yet known. This study followed the origin of stoechas through history, from ancient Rome to the conquered lands of Islam in Spain, from North Africa to India, to find its trace in various civilizations, including their traditional medicines. The results showed that the stoechas mentioned in Dioscorides and Pliny’s books was referred to as Lavandula stoechas. This herb was prescribed in Persia for centuries as an imported drug, and the Arabicized/Persianized name, osṭoḵūdūs, was used for it. Several herbs have been used as stoechas due to a variety of reasons: mistranslation, miscategorization, and substitution/adulteration; the herbs were Woodfordia fruticosa (India, 11th cent.), Rosmarinus officialis (North Africa, 13th cent. Northern Iran, 17th cent.). Around 100 years ago, L. stoechas was substituted by L. dentata and around 50 years ago, it was substituted by Nepeta menthoides in herbal markets of Iran. All of these herbs were sold as stoechas because of its similar medicinal effects as well as its similar appearance. Some information about its effects is documented in various manuscripts; yet few proper studies have conducted to test them