Numerous scientific texts insist on safe topical application of specific herbal products like those containing Boswellia oleogumresin, but adverse effects arising during clinical trials of herbal medicines give the opportunity to clarify the blind spots in the area of drug safety. A 36-year-old woman without allergic background had two burn wounds because of hot oil. Her hand's wound w...

BACKGROUND Gum resins obtained from trees of the Burseraceae family (Boswellia sp.) are important ingredients in incense and perfumes. Extracts prepared from Boswellia sp. gum resins have been shown to possess anti-inflammatory and anti-neoplastic effects. Essential oil prepared by distillation of the gum resin traditionally used for aromatic therapy has also been shown to have tumor cell-speci...

BACKGROUND Frankincense (Boswellia carterii, known as Ru Xiang in Chinese) and sandalwood (Santalum album, known as Tan Xiang in Chinese) are cancer preventive and therapeutic agents in Chinese medicine. Their biologically active ingredients are usually extracted from frankincense by hydrodistillation and sandalwood by distillation. This study aims to investigate the anti-proliferative and pro-...

OBJECTIVES Boswellic acid (BA), a compound isolated from the gum-resin of Boswellia carterii, is a pentacyclic terpenoid that is active against many inflammatory diseases, including cancer, arthritis, chronic colitis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, and memory impairment, but the mechanism is poorly understood. This study investigated the effects of boswellic acid on spatial learning and m...

Activation of the serine/threonine kinase Akt is associated with aggressive clinical behavior of prostate cancer. We found that the human prostate cancer cell lines LNCaP and PC-3 express predominantly Akt1 and Akt2. Selective down-regulation of Akt1, but not Akt2, by short-hairpin RNA reduced the viability of prostate cancer cells. In addition, structurally different Akt inhibitors were cytoto...

The triterpenoid acetyl-lupeolic acid (ac-LA) isolated from the oleogum resin of Boswellia carterii reduced the viability of a panel of cancer cell lines more efficiently than lupeol. There was no detectable intracellular conversion of ac-LA to lupeol and vice versa. In contrast to docetaxel, ac-LA did not induce selection of treatment-resistant cancer cells. By various parameters including DNA...