A Study of Phytochemical Composition of a Few Tribal Medicinal Plants from Sriharikota

SRIHARIKOTA acquired importance botanically because of rich Island vegetation and due to installation of Rocket Launching Station by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). A few Tribal colonies are domiciled there. Some aged tribal men conversed with herbal medicines and practices. With a fear that this tribal medicinal knowledge of the island may be lost, if urgently not pursued in a recorded manner for the benefit of modern society, a project on Ethnobotany and tribal medicines of Sriharikota Island is taken up three years back in 1996. Regular field tours are conducted covering all the seasons and about 300 medicinal plants are collected along with ample field notes on folklore medicinal uses with the support of local aged tribal men. Out of these, a few plants are selected on the basis of endemism and utility and subjected to phytochemical analysis. Investigation for 11 chemical components is made in 21 samples. All the data is recorded in this paper. The results are mostly in conformity with the medicinal uses and they are discussed

Antimicrobial Screening of Some Selected Tribal Medicinal Plants from Sriharikota Island, Andhra Pradesh, India

Sriharikota Island is important because of its rich vegetational diversity and for the fact that it is the site of a Rocket Launching Station built by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). An aboriginal tribe called ‘Yanadi’ dwells in a few tribal pockets on Sriharikota Island. However, a few aged tribal men are still able to furnish information regarding their traditional practices of medicines and recipes. There is an urgent need to conserve their herbal wealth and preserve their traditional knowledge for the benefit of modern society. It is with this background, along with the need to give a primary scientific basis to the tribal medicinal lore of Sriharikota Island, that a preliminary screening of antimicrobial (antibacterial and antifungal) activity screening was conducted for 81 tribal medicinal samples based on their medicinal importance and endemism/rare occurrence on the island. Of these 81 samples, 28 have shown positive response for antimicrobial tests. Among these 8 species, namely Alangium salvifolium, Aristolochia indica, Ctrullus colocynthis, Datura stramonium, Ficus religiosa, Holoptelia integrifolia, Lawsonia innermis and Ventilago madaraspatana have shown congizable immunity zone of inhibition (i.e. above 20 mm). All the data is recorded in this paper. The results are mostly in conformity of the medicinal uses and they are discussed in detail in this article

Ethnomedicinal Recipes for Respiratory and Bronchial Diseases from Tribals of Sriharikota Island, Andhra Pradesh

Sriharikota Island in Andhra Pradesh is an elliptical land mass sandwiched between Bay of Bengal in the East and Pulicat lake in the West. Sullurpet is the nearest railway station, which is 18 Km from Sriharikota Island and it is on Chennai-Kolkata trunk line and 90 Km away from North of Chennai. An aboriginal tribe called Yanadi dwells in Sriharikota. It is similar to Chenchu community elsewhere in Andhra Pradesh. In spite of the community being drifted from their natural way of life due to agro-rural development activities, a few aged tribals are still able to furnish traditional ethnomedicinal data. So far no ethno medico-botanical studies are conducted in this area except for list of 50 plants reported for general ailments/ diseases by Suryanarayana et al. (1989). Therefore a detailed study on ethno medico-botanical uses of the tribals of Sriharikota Island was undertaken for the duration three years (1996-1999). During this work about 280 species are collected having a variety of ethno medico-botanical/pharmaceutical values. However the article presents the 20 plant species only having remedial effect for respiratory and bronchial diseases. The study analyzes the habit and plant part(s) used for ethnomedicinal practices by the tribals of Sriharikota Island

FPGA based implementation of low complex adaptive speckle suppression filter for B-mode medical ultrasound images

Speckles are considered as noise, which masks the fine information present in B-mode ultrasound images. Speckles appears as small snakes and dense granular like structures which has serious impact on visual perception of an image. Adaptive filter based on local statistics of an image is used to enhance the image by suppressing the noise. Adaptive speckle suppression filter enhance the image by reducing the variance between intrapixel intensities in homogeneous regions and preserving variance across interpixel intensities across the nonhomogeneous regions. In this paper, we implemented low complex adaptive speckle suppression filter on FPGA based kintex7 board. The performance of the filter is evaluated by plotting the pixel variations of original image with filtered image of an ultrasound phantom. The results show that proposed algorithm can be implemented on mobile ultrasound platforms due to 50% less computations needed per pixel compared to traditional adaptive speckle suppression algorithms, which aids better diagnosis for healthcare

A comparative study of probiotic, prokinetic based triple therapy with USFDA regimen in the eradication of Helicobacter pylori in a tertiary care hospital

Background: Helicobacter pylori infection has been associated with peptic ulcer disease, gastric carcinoma and gastric mucosa associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma. Its eradication is important and current regimens are associated with antibiotic resistance, side effects and poor patient compliance. Probiotics supplementation can overcome the above problem and additions of prokinetics improve dyspepsia symptoms and thereby improve patient compliance. So the aim of the study was to compare efficacy and safety of standard United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) regimen with probiotic, prokinetic based novel regimen.Methods: 100 patients diagnosed with H. pylori infection were randomly assigned into two eradication regimen groups viz., group A and group B. Group A received standard USFDA regimen, amoxicillin 1 gm, lansoprazole 30 mg and clarithromycin 500 mg twice a day for 2 weeks and group B received a probiotic and prokinetic itopride 50 mg thrice daily, pantoprazole 40 mg, amoxicillin 1 gm and clarithromycin 500 mg twice daily for 2 weeks. Patients with Rapid Urease Test (RUT) and histopathology reports negative for H. pylori were considered as eradicated and then the percentage of eradication rate in both groups was compared.Results: H. pylori eradication rates were more in group B compared to group A (84% vs 70%, p =0.096 at 95% CI). The occurrence of side effects was less in group B compared to group A (30% vs 46%, p= 0.099). Diarrhoea was statistically less in group B compared to group A (p< 0.05).Conclusions: Probiotics supplementation increases eradication rates of anti H. pylori therapy and improves tolerability by reducing side effects especially diarrhoea. Prokinetics and probiotic based novel regimen improved dyspepsia symptoms and patient compliance

Assessment on awareness of rational prescribing practices among medical interns in a tertiary care hospital: a questionnaire based study

Background: Awareness about rational use of Medicines is required to improve the quality of health care system. Attitude towards rational drug use is also an utmost importance as they constitute the future generation doctors.Methods: A set of 13 questionnaire is given to the interns through an online link to their e-mail which contains informed consent and questionnaires. Respondents has to select the best suitable option and after which the data will be compiled and statistically analyzed.Results: Age of the study participants range from 22-26yrs. Half of them have finished major postings. Almost 96.1 % of them were aware of the term essential drugs. Only 25% of them said that they have NLEMI at work place, 75% of them were aware of the term Rational use of Medicines. Only 32% of them were aware of the term P drugs. 44% of them were aware of STEP criteria for selection of drug and 47% of them were aware of the updated prescribing format. 8% knew the difference between old and new prescription format, 25% of them always prescribe. Almost 82% of them narrate regarding the disease and drug therapy, 31% of them prescribe only generic name.Conclusions: Educational intervention like CME and practical hands on training in Rational use of Medicines would help them in better understanding of the subject and its clinical implications thereby decreasing the prescribing errors