Anticancer Activity of Uncommon Medicinal Plants from the Republic of Suriname: Traditional Claims, Preclinical Findings, and Potential Clinical Applicability against Cancer

Despite much progress in our understanding of the essence of cancer, remarkable advances in methods for early diagnosis, the expanding array of antineoplastic drugs and treatment modalities, as well as important refinements in their use, this disease is among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in many parts of the world. In fact, the next decade is anticipated to bring over 20 million new cases per year globally, about half of whom will die from their disease. This indicates a need for better strategies to deal with cancer. One way to go forward is to draw lessons from ancient ethnopharmacological wisdom and to evaluate the plant biodiversity for compounds with potential antineoplastic activity. This approach has already yielded many breakthrough cytotoxic drugs such as vincristine, etoposide, paclitaxel, and irinotecan. The Republic of Suriname (South America), renowned for its pristine and highly biodiverse rain forests as well as its ethnic, cultural, and ethnopharmacological diversity, could also contribute to these developments. This chapter addresses the cancer problem throughout the world and in Suriname, extensively deals with nine plants used for treating cancer in the country, and concludes with their prospects in anticancer drug discovery and development programs

Plant-Based Ethnopharmacological Remedies for Hypertension in Suriname

Hypertension is the most important modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and renal diseases which are together among the most frequent causes of morbidity and mortality in the world. Despite the availability of a wide range of effective medicines, many individuals suffering from hypertension use plant-derived preparations for treating their disease. The choice for these alternatives is often associated with the closer relationship of such approaches to specific social, cultural, and religious perceptions about health and disease. However, in most cases, the scientific evidence for clinical efficacy of such medications is scant. The Republic of Suriname is a middle-income country in South America with a relatively high prevalence of hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases. This country harbors descendants of all continents, all of whom have preserved their cultural customs including their ethnopharmacological traditions. As a result, many Surinamese are inclined to treat their diseases including hypertension as they have done for centuries, that is, with plant-based preparations. This chapter has compiled the plants used for treating hypertension in Suriname; extensively evaluates 15 commonly used plants for potential efficacy on the basis of available phytochemical, mechanistic, preclinical, and clinical literature data; and closes with conclusions about their potential usefulness against the disease

Meeting of the Minds: Traditional Herbal Medicine in Multiethnic Suriname

The Republic of Suriname (South America) is located on the Guiana Shield, one of the regions with the highest biodiversity and the largest expanse of undisturbed tropical rain forest in the world. The population of almost 570,000 consists of a unique blend of ethnic groups and cultures from all continents. These include Indigenous Amerindians, the original inhabitants; Maroons, the descendants of runaway slaves who had been shipped from Africa between the seventeenth and the nineteenth century; Creoles, a generic term referring to mixed blacks and whites; the descendants from indentured workers from China, India, and Java (Indonesia) who arrived between the second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century; as well as immigrants from various Middle Eastern, European, Caribbean, and South American countries. All these groups have made their own specific contribution to Suriname’s traditional medicine, which has resulted in a myriad of remedies against many disorders, mainly employing a variety of plants. This chapter presents a brief history of Suriname, addresses the ethnopharmacological practices of Maroons and Creoles as well as Hindustanis and Javanese, and concludes with a few remarks on the previsions provided by the country’s rich plant-based traditional medicine

Naturally Occurring Antioxidants in Seven Well-Known Fruits from the Republic of Suriname (South America): Part 2

The dependence of humans on oxygen for their metabolism, together with their uninterrupted exposure to a wide variety of hazardous environmental chemicals, leads to the continuous formation of reactive oxygen-derived species (ROS) in the body such as superoxide radical anion, hydrogen peroxide, peroxyl radicals, and hydroxyl radical. When in excess, ROS can damage cellular constituents such as DNA and membrane lipids causing oxidative stress, cellular injury, and eventually, inflammatory, neoplastic, diabetic, cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, and age-related diseases. Fortunately, the body has a multitude of naturally occurring antioxidants in dietary fruits and vegetables to its disposal, including polyphenolic compounds, vitamins, and essential minerals. These antioxidants eliminate ROS by acting as reducing agents, hydrogen donors, quenchers of singlet oxygen, or chelators of metal ions that catalyze oxidation reactions, thus decreasing the risk of the above-mentioned diseases. Part 1 of this chapter has comprehensively addressed three representative examples of fruits from the Republic of Suriname (South America) that are rich in the polyphenolics anthocyanins, ellagitannins, and coumarins and has highlighted their antioxidant activity and beneficial and health-promoting effects. This second part deals with four Surinamese fruits with an abundance of (pro)vitamins A, C, and E and selenium in light of their antioxidant activities

Naturally Occurring Antioxidants in Seven Well-Known Fruits from the Republic of Suriname (South America): Part 1

The dependence of humans on oxygen for their metabolism, together with their uninterrupted exposure to a wide variety of hazardous environmental chemicals, leads to the continuous formation of reactive oxygen-derived species (ROS) in the body, such as superoxide radical anion, hydrogen peroxide, peroxyl radicals, and hydroxyl radical. When in excess, ROS can damage cellular constituents such as DNA and membrane lipids causing oxidative stress, cellular injury, and, eventually, inflammatory, neoplastic, diabetic, cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, and age-related diseases. Fortunately, the body has a multitude of naturally occurring antioxidants in dietary fruits and vegetables to its disposal, including polyphenolic compounds, vitamins, and essential minerals. These antioxidants eliminate ROS by acting as reducing agents, hydrogen donors, quenchers of singlet oxygen, or chelators of metal ions that catalyze oxidation reactions, thus decreasing the risk of the abovementioned diseases. This first part of the current chapter comprehensively addresses three representative examples of fruits from the Republic of Suriname (South America) that are rich in anthocyanins, ellagitannins, and coumarins and highlights their antioxidant activity and beneficial and health-promoting effects. In part 2, four Surinamese fruits with an abundance of (pro)vitamins A, C, and E and selenium are equally extensively dealt with in light of their antioxidant activities

Phenolic Compounds and Antioxidant Activities of Eight Species of Fabaceae That Are Commonly Used in Traditional Medical Practices in the Republic of Suriname

The consumption of diets rich in antioxidants may minimize the chances of developing debilitating diseases such as cardiovascular, diabetic, inflammatory, neoplastic, and cognitive disorders. The Fabaceae or pea family is the third most species-rich plant family on Earth and includes more than 19,000 species in over 700 genera. Many species of Fabaceae are ingredients of staple diets and medicinal substances. This may be attributable to the presumably high content of antioxidants in these plants, particularly phenolic compounds. The Republic of Suriname (South America) harbors over 400 species of Fabaceae in more than 100 genera and has a rich ethnopharmacological tradition that also involves a number of Fabaceae species. In this chapter, we evaluated the literature to determine whether the traditional use of eight of the medicinally most commonly employed Surinamese species of Fabaceae may be associated with their phenolic content and antioxidant activity. Our results suggest that this may hold true for Caesalpinia pulcherrima, Cajanus cajan, Clitoria ternatea, Desmodium adscendens, Lablab purpureus, and Tamarindus indica but not for Copaifera guyanensis and Dipteryx odorata, the bioactivities of which mainly seem to be determined by terpenoids and coumarins, respectively, without an apparent involvement of antioxidant effects

Measurement of the W+W-gamma Cross Section and Direct Limits on Anomalous Quartic Gauge Boson Couplings at LEP

The process e+e- -> W+W-gamma is analysed using the data collected with the L3 detector at LEP at a centre-of-mass energy of 188.6GeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 176.8pb^-1. Based on a sample of 42 selected W+W- candidates containing an isolated hard photon, the W+W-gamma cross section, defined within phase-space cuts, is measured to be: sigma_WWgamma = 290 +/- 80 +/- 16 fb, consistent with the Standard Model expectation. Including the process e+e- -> nu nu gamma gamma, limits are derived on anomalous contributions to the Standard Model quartic vertices W+W- gamma gamma and W+W-Z gamma at 95% CL: -0.043 GeV^-2 < a_0/Lambda^2 < 0.043 GeV^-2 0.08 GeV^-2 < a_c/Lambda^2 < 0.13 GeV^-2 0.41 GeV^-2 < a_n/Lambda^2 < 0.37 GeV^-2

Production of Single W Bosons at \sqrt{s}=189 GeV and Measurement of WWgamma Gauge Couplings

Single W boson production in electron-positron collisions is studied with the L3 detector at LEP. The data sample collected at a centre-of-mass energy of \sqrt{s} = 188.7GeV corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 176.4pb^-1. Events with a single energetic lepton or two acoplanar hadronic jets are selected. Within phase-space cuts, the total cross-section is measured to be 0.53 +/- 0.12 +/- 0.03 pb, consistent with the Standard Model expectation. Including our single W boson results obtained at lower \sqrt{s}, the WWgamma gauge couplings kappa_gamma and lambda_gamma are determined to be kappa_gamma = 0.93 +/- 0.16 +/- 0.09 and lambda_gamma = -0.31 +0.68 -0.19 +/- 0.13

Search for an invisibly decaying Higgs boson in e^+e^- collisions at \sqrt{s} = 183 - 189 GeV

A search for a Higgs boson decaying into invisible particles is performed using the data collected at LEP by the L3 experiment at centre-of-mass energies of 183 GeV and 189 GeV. The integrated luminosities are respectively 55.3 pb^-1 and 176.4 pb^-1. The observed candidates are consistent with the expectations from Standard Model processes. In the hypothesis that the production cross section of this Higgs boson equals the Standard Model one and the branching ratio into invisible particles is 100%, a lower mass limit of 89.2 GeV is set at 95% confidence level

Measurement of Bose-Einstein Correlations in e+e- -> W+W- at root(s)=189GeV

We investigate Bose-Einstein correlations (BEC) in W-pair production at root(s)=189GeV using the L3 detector at LEP. We observe BEC between particles from a single W decay in good agreement with those from a light-quark Z decay sample. We investigate their possible existence between particles coming from different W's. No evidence for such inter-W BEC is found