COVID-19 and herbal practice: A United Kingdom practitioner survey

Objectives

To identify the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on UK herbal medicine practice and how herbal medicine practitioners are supporting people with COVID-19.

Design

Mixed-methods e-survey.

Methods

The survey link was distributed through professional associations and social media. Quantitative data were descriptively summarised and qualitative data were analysed using content analysis.

Results

Results from 59 responses indicated a profound effect of the pandemic on herbal medicine practice, with a move to remote working and a reduction in client numbers. Practitioners reported prescribing a wide range of medicinal plants, chiefly Glycyrrhiza glabra L. and Echinacea spp. alongside providing information and advice. Few reported inter-professional collaboration.

Conclusions

Herbal practitioners need to build on current collaborations, research and experience to develop consistent approaches to support people with mild-moderate COVID-19 symptoms. More systematic exploration of herbal medicine practice during and as a consequence of the pandemic is needed.

What is already known about the topic

• The COVID-19 pandemic has had a large impact on all types of healthcare• The impact on herbal medicine practice is unclear.

What this paper adds

• The COVID-19 pandemic has substantially affected UK herbal medicine practice• A wide range of medicinal plants are currently used by herbal practitioners to support people with COVID-19• Herbal practitioners need to develop consistent holistic approaches to support people with mild-moderate symptoms of COVID-19.

Antimicrobial assays of three native British plants used in Anglo-Saxon medicine for wound healing formulations in 10th century England

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

Three important Anglo-Saxon medical texts from the 10th century contain herbal formulations for over 250 plant species, many of which have yet to be evaluated for their phytochemical and/or pharmacological properties. In this study, three native British plants were selected to determine antimicrobial activity relevant to treating bacterial infections and wounds.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Several preparations of Agrimonia eupatoria L., Arctium minus (Hill) Bernh. and Potentilla reptans L. were screened for antimicrobial activity against selected Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria of relevance in wounds using a 96 well plate microdilution method (200, 40 and 8μg/mL). Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values were determined for the most potent extracts from 2 to 0.004mg/mL and HPLC chromatograms examined by multivariate analysis. Principle components analysis (PCA) was used to identify chemical differences between antimicrobial activity of the crude extracts.

RESULTS

The HPLC-PCA score plots attributed HPLC peaks to the antimicrobial activity with all three plants inhibiting growth of Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus by >50% in four or more extracts. The first two principal components (PC) represented 87% of the dataset variance. The P. reptans 75% ethanol root extract exhibited the greatest range of activity with MIC(50) at 31.25μg/mL to a total MIC that was also the minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) at 1mg/mL. Additionally, the root of P. reptans, inhibited growth of Gram-negative bacteria with the 75% ethanol extract having a MIC(50) at 1mg/mL against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and the decoction a MIC(50) at 3.9μg/mL against Escherichia coli.

CONCLUSIONS

The results indicate a moderate antimicrobial activity against common wound pathogens for P. reptans suggesting it may well have been effective for treating wound and bacterial infections. Anglo-Saxon literary heritage may provide a credible basis for researching new antimicrobial formulations. Our approach encompassing advanced analytical technologies and chemometric models paves the way for systematic investigation of Anglo-Saxon medical literature for further therapeutic indications to uncover knowledge of native British plants, some of which are currently lost to modern Western herbal medicine.

Phytochemical Evaluation of Selected Antioxidant-Containing Medicinal Plants for Use in the Preparation of a Herbal Formula - A Preliminary Study

Oxidative damage is implicated in the pathogenesis of a number of diseases. Scientific research shows positive links between accumulated free-radical damage and age-related diseases such as atherosclerosis, Alzheimer, and osteoarthritis. There are reports that plant-derived phenolic compounds such as flavonoids have antioxidant properties capable of reducing the risk of developing these diseases. This work aims to evaluate the antioxidant activity of selected medicinal plants traditionally used by herbalists, in particular for the treatment of arthritis, with a view to developing a formula for treating age and age-related diseases. Thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analyses of each plant confirmed the presence of a number of flavonoids reported in the literature, as well as unidentified compounds. The antioxidant activities of these plants were determined by DPPH (= '1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl-hydrazyl') radical scavenging, and by inhibition of linoleic acid peroxidation. All the crude plant extracts showed marked antioxidant activities in both assays. The extracts' inhibitory effects on linoleic acid peroxidation was concentration-dependent, with the highest activity shown at 0.1% (w/v). These results suggest that the phenolic compounds, particularly the flavonoids, may, in part, be responsible for the antioxidant activity of traditional plant extracts.