Sweet Annie - Wormwood, Artemisia Annua

[Guest guest]

http://www.diet-and-health.net/articles.php?cont=wormwood

 

Sweet Annie - Wormwood, Artemisia Annua

 

 

Other Common Names: Annual Wormwood, Ch'Ou Hao, Huang Hua Hao,

Kuso-Ninzin, Qing-guo, Qing Hao, Sweet Sagewort, Sweet Wormwood, Ts'Ao

Hao, Wormwood, Artemisia annua

 

Range: S. E. Europe to W. Asia. E. North America

 

Habitat: A naturalized weed of waste places, roadsides, fallow fields

and neglected gardens in eastern N. America. Plants are longer lived,

more hardy and more aromatic when they are grown in a poor dry soil.

 

Qing Ho, better known in the West as sweet wormwood, is a traditional

Chinese herbal medicine. An aromatic anti-bacterial plant, recent

research has shown that it destroys malarial parasites, lowers fevers

and checks bleeding. It is often used in the Tropics as an affordable

and effective anti-malarial.

 

The leaves are antiperiodic, antiseptic, digestive, febrifuge. An

infusion of the leaves is used internally to treat fevers, colds,

diarrhea etc. Externally, the leaves are poulticed onto nose bleeds,

boils and abscesses. The leaves are harvested in the summer, before

the plant comes into flower, and are dried for later use.

 

The plant contains artemisinin, this substance has proved to be a

dramatically effective anti-malarial. Artemisinin is the antimalarial

substance isolated in China in 1972 from a shrub (Artemisia annua)

used in traditional Chinese medicine from which qinghaosu is derived.

Clinical trials have shown it to be 90% effective and more successful

than standard drugs. In a trial of 2000 patients, all were cured of

the disease.

 

Artemisinin and its derivatives are a group of fast acting and

life-saving drugs, produced mainly in China and Viet Nam. Their

widespread and irrational use, especially underdosing and poor quality

formulations, accelerates parasite resistance. These drugs should be

reserved for treating multidrug-resistant malaria. However,

unregulated commercial vendors sell these drugs in Cambodia and

neighbouring countries.

 

Artemisinin and its derivatives have an essential role to play in the

treatment of multidrug-resistant falciparum malaria. The remarkable

properties of these drugs are particularly valuable in the treatment

of severe and complicated malaria caused by multidrug-resistant P.

falciparum. These drugs have been widely used in China and Viet Nam

and have been recently registered in many other countries outside the

Western Pacific Region. Malaria mortality in Viet Nam dropped by 92%

when these drugs were used on a nationwide basis from 1992 to 1996.

 

From the early 1990s, economic recovery made it possible to increase

allocations to malaria control. Collaboration between industry and

researchers led to the local production of artemisinin and related

drugs for treatment of severe and multidrug-resistant malaria. The

artemisinin drugs (used for centuries in traditional Chinese and

Vietnamese medicine (mod. note: as well as in europe)) had been

rediscovered by Chinese scientists in the 1970s. In Viet Nam, the

introduction of these rapidly acting antimalarial drugs in the general

health services has helped to reduce the number of severe cases and

malaria mortality.

 

 

The seeds are used in the treatment of flatulence, indigestion and

night sweats.

 

The plant is used in China as a medium for growing Aspergillus which

is used in brewing wine.

 

 

* Plants For A Future - A Resource and Information Centre for

Edible and other useful plants.

* Pittler MH, Ernst E: Artemether for severe malaria: a

meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials. Clinical Infectious

Diseases 1999; 28(3): 597-601.

* World Health Organization. Fifty years of WHO in the Western

Pacific Region. Chapter 22. Malaria