Pharmacognostical Phytochemical and Pharmacological Screening of Nymphaea Species Linn Nymphaeaceae

Abstract

The herbal medicines are the major remedy in traditional medicinal system and are being used in medicinal practices for thousands of years. They have made a great contribution in maintaining human health. The practice continues even today because of its biomedicinal benefits in many parts of the world. There is a phenomenal increase in the demand for the herbal medicines especially for those, which have been scientifically validated. These drugs are invariably single plant extracts or fractions thereof, which have been carefully standardized and their efficacy and safety for a suggested application, well demonstrated. An attempt has been made to standardize two flowers of same families traditionally used for medicine plants by carrying out their pharmacognostical, phytochemical and pharmacological studies as per the standard procedures. The evaluation of potent flower extracts for their phytochemical, In-vitro and In-vivo antioxidant, antidiabetic and anticancer properties were carried out. Isolation of the phyto-constituents from the potent flower extracts using column chromatography and their characterization was also carried out. Based on the above results obtained and observations we can infer that the flowers under study, Nymphaea pubescens and Nymphaea nouchali could be used for the supportive treatment of hepatotoxicity, diabetes mellitus and cancer as the flowers also offers effective protection against the attack of free radicals that forms the basis for the development of diabetic complications, hepatic damage and for certain case of viral treatment. Such antioxidant and antidiabetic herbal drugs developed through standardization and validation studies will certainly contribute to combat this deadly disease. Further in depth molecular level isolation and screened for clinical as well as toxicological studies can result in an eco-friendly human compatible antioxidant, hepatoprotective and antidiabetic herbal drug or herbal molecule from these selected traditional as well as tribal flower drug sources.