There in the mountains, in the north-east of the Himalayas, grows a plant, Hydrangea, commonly known as Hortensia, that may have helped scientists and researchers from Harvard School of Dental Medicine to find the answer on how to treat autoimmune disorder, an inappropriate immune response of the body against substances and molecules naturally present in our bodies [7], but mistakenly confused by our natural defenses with external pathogens, as in Lupus or psoriasis.

The researchers, lead by Malcolm Whitman, professor of developmental biology at Harvard School of Dental Medicine discovered that one of the active constituents found in the roots of Hydrangea, the halofuginone, blocked the development of Th17 cells, a type of cells present in many autoimmune disorder cases [5]. But why did their research focused on Hydrangea?

DICHROA FEBRIFUGA (HYDRANGEA)

Family: Hydrangeaceae
Genus: Hydrangea
Common name: Hortensia, Chinese:  常山, Pinyin: chángshān, Ji Gu.

WHAT IS AVEMAR?

Wheat germ is known for its incredibly big amount of active constituents, somehow it reminds me of those concentrated astronaut food packages, containing a concentrated amount of all the main nutrients the human body needs to develop its day to day functions. Image left: Wheat by Mr. Bologna under Creative Commons License (CC BY 2.0).

Wheat germ contains folic acid (vitamin B9), essential to synthesize and also to repair damaged DNA, vitamin E, thiamin, zinc, magnesium, essential fatty acids...etc. But what is more important, wheat germ extracts have shown to have other beneficial properties, as for example the exerted anti-cancer properties showed by some of the available commercial brands, mainly Avemar, for which several studies and clinical trials [1] have demonstrated that it can be used to enhance the activity of the immune system, inducing cell apoptosis of tumor cells (natural programmed death of cancer cells).

TRITICUM

Family: Poaceae
Genus: Triticum
Common name: Wheat

Lung cancer affects is the leading cause of malignancy-related death worldwide and only second after prostate and breast cancer. Different treatments in Europe and the United States have shown how science improved the therapies against lung carcinomas and how survival rates are increasing day by day, unfortunately since the beginning of the 19th century also the number of incidences of lung carcinomas also increased drastically, let's hope science and nature can show one day the power they both can achieve together.  Image left: Scutellaria baicalensis by Tanaka Juuyoh (田中十洋) under Creative Commons license (CC BY 2.0).

TRIPTERYGIUM WILFORDII HOOK

Family: Celastraceae
Genus: Tripterygium
Common name: Thunder God Vine, Lei gong teng.