Medical Research, Folk Medicine and Potential Health Value
Scientific studies of the cape gooseberry show its constituents, possibly polyphenols and/or carotenoids, demonstrate anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.
The crude extract of the fruit-bearing plant has demonstrated antihepatoma and anti-inflammatory activities.
It has shown possible antidiabetes and antihypertension properties in vitro.
Some "withanolides" isolated from the plant have shown anticancer activity. The unusual 5-chloride withanolide, 9, displayed significant cytotoxic activity.
Antihepatotoxic effects (in rats) against CCl4 were found.
Melatonin (N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine) has been found in the plant. Evidence, mainly from animal models, suggests melatonin administration may help to prevent or cure diseases associated with oxidative stress, including neurodegenerative diseases, which frequently occur during aging.
In folk medicine, Physalis peruviana has been used as a medicinal herb to treat cancer, leukemia, malaria, asthma, hepatitis, dermatitis and rheumatism. None of these diseases, however, is yet confirmed in human clinical in vivo studies as treatable by the cape gooseberry.
Read more about this topic: Physalis Peruviana
Famous quotes containing the words medical, folk, medicine, potential and/or health:
“One fellow I was dating in medical school ... was a veterinarian and he wanted to get married. I said, but you’re going to be moving to Minneapolis, and he said, oh, you can quit and I’ll take care of you. I said, “Go.””
—Sylvia Beckman (b. c. 1931)
“An’ when the earth’s as cauld’s the mune
An’ a’ its folk are lang syne deid,
On coontless stars the Babe maun cry
An’ the Crucified maun bleed.”
—Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978)
“In view of the fact that the number of people living too long has risen catastrophically and still continues to rise.... Question: Must we live as long as modern medicine enables us to?... We control our entry into life, it is time we began to control our exit.”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)
“The germ of violence is laid bare in the child abuser by the sheer accident of his individual experience ... in a word, to a greater degree than we like to admit, we are all potential child abusers.”
—F. Gonzalez-Crussi, Mexican professor of pathology, author. “Reflections on Child Abuse,” Notes of an Anatomist (1985)
“I am astonished at the singular pertinacity and endurance of our lives. The miracle is, that what is is, when it is so difficult, if not impossible, for anything else to be; that we walk on in our particular paths so far, before we fall on death and fate, merely because we must walk in some path; that every man can get a living, and so few can do anything more. So much only can I accomplish ere health and strength are gone, and yet this suffices.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)