A new method involving concurrent solid-phase microextraction combined with continuous hydrodistillation of essential oil was developed. This new methodology allowed for the detection by GC-MS of very small amounts of a diagnostic peak for the authentication of Ephedra sinica, in a short period of time and using only small sample sizes. This diagnostic peak was identified as 4-vinylanisole, and...

On February 6, 2004, FDA issued a final rule stating that supplements containing “ephedra” present an unreasonable risk of illness to those taking them. This rule puts ban on manufacture and distribution of ephedra containing dietary supplements with effect from April 12, 2004. This was the first time in US that a supplement has been removed from the market under DSHEA (Dietary Supplement Healt...

Cancer, malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis, and their corresponding multi-drug-resistant strains among other diseases have entered into the 21st century as major human medical problems. Since ancient times mankind has dealt with health problems using drugs produced by Nature. The plant kingdom has long been exploited in many aspects and specially as a source of drugs. Indeed, evidence about the first ...

Amphetamine analogues are produced by plants in the genus Ephedra and by khat (Catha edulis), and include the widely used decongestants and appetite suppressants (1S,2S)-pseudoephedrine and (1R,2S)-ephedrine. The production of these metabolites, which derive from L-phenylalanine, involves a multi-step pathway partially mapped out at the biochemical level using knowledge of benzoic acid metaboli...

This review focuses on the efficacy and safety of effective herbal medicines in the management of obesity in humans and animals. PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, Web of Science, and IranMedex databases were searched up to December 30, 2008. The search terms were "obesity" and ("herbal medicine" or "plant", "plant medicinal" or "medicine traditional") without narrowing or limiting search elements...

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) had demonstrated effectiveness in the prevention and control of COVID-19. Statistics showed that Ephedra Glycyrrhiza were frequently used treatment We hypothesized Ephedra-Glycyrrhiza drug pair is a potential choice for Here, 112 active compounds identified from via network pharmacology approach. enrichment analysis these might participate cAMP, PI3K-Akt, JAK-...

Ephedra plants are taxonomically classified as gymnosperms, and are medicinally important as the botanical origin of crude drugs and as bioresources that contain pharmacologically active chemicals. Here we show a comparative analysis of the transcriptomes of aerial stems and roots of Ephedra sinica based on high-throughput mRNA sequencing by RNA-Seq. De novo assembly of short cDNA sequence read...