The shell of the coconut and coconut water are taken internally for kidney problems and the root is used to treat infertility and sexually transmitted diseases. The fruit mass of this species is applied for sinusitis for which the leaves are also drunk as a tea. The juice of the fruit is taken orally for diabetes and to regulate blood pressure; the leaves are boiled in a tea for a variety of conditions, including diabetes, stomachache, headache, labor pain, flu, common cold, and bronchitis; the leaves are also applied for skin boils. The observation that various plant hearthstone the darkness parts can be used to treat the same health condition further adds to the complexity of plant mixtures. Due to the high number of plant species in some recipes and in order not to hinder participants during the process of recalling those recipes, information on individual plant parts could not always be systematically recorded which did not allow for a quantitative analysis of data about plant parts. The percentage of mixtures as compared to single plants in plant use reports varied between 32 to 41%, depending on the geographic location and participant status .
Hence, these powerful root medicines have a cultural history of being preferentially used by specialists to treat serious health conditions that are outside the therapeutic realm of the family unit. In an anthropological study in the Dominican countryside , botellas are described as “remedies of multiple content” that are normally prepared by experts. The author mentions botellas for men to treat sexually transmitted diseases, botellas for women to treat problems of the female reproductive organs, and purgative botellas for both sexes. In our study, we identified at least four different subtypes of botellas that are used to treat genitourinary and respiratory conditions, respectively.
Table 3 lists the different types of mixtures reported by participants when they described the herbal remedies used for particular health conditions, including the terms that they used for each type of preparation. The table also provides an overview of the relative frequency of these mixtures in use reports. The names either refer to the end-product or the form in which the remedies are administered . Percentage of mixtures in plant use reports according to specific health conditions .
FDA expects removing the contraindication will enable health care professionals and patients to make individual decisions about benefit and risk, especially for those at very high risk of heart attack or stroke. This includes patients with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia and those who have previously had a heart attack or stroke. Rapid progression of kidney disease occurred in just nine percent of patients taking sodium bicarbonate, compared to 45 percent of the other group.
An herbal remedy can be composed of only one plant species or several plants combined together as a mixture that can also include non-plant ingredients. For the purpose of this paper, we define a mixture as any herbal remedy that consists of a minimum of two plant species. One popular Dominican herbal preparation is known as the botella, a bottled herbal mixture that consists of a combination of plant parts or exudates from different plant species, culinary spices and frequently also non-plant ingredients.
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Data from lay persons (who self-medicate with medicinal plants) in New York City and the Dominican Republic . Interview data were entered into separate Microsoft Access databases for NYC and the DR and extracted for further analysis in Microsoft Excel. This is a description of a particular herbal remedy used to treat a given health condition by an interview participant.
After obtaining prior informed consent, a questionnaire was administered in Spanish, with the researcher asking questions and recording the answers on a questionnaire form. In total, 174 Dominican participants (165 lay persons, 9 specialists; 110 women, 64 men) were interviewed in NYC and 145 participants (128 lay persons, 17 specialists; 87 women, 58 men) in the DR. The questionnaire was multi-faceted and included both quantitative and qualitative elements. The main topic gauged participants’ knowledge of plants to treat thirty common health conditions (Vandebroek et al., 2007). These conditions were mentioned one at a time and each participant was asked to name known medicinal plants, plant part used, preparation, mode of administration, and the location where the herbal remedy was used . Impotence scores low in lay persons in both NYC and the DR, but ranks high in DR specialists. In general, table 2 demonstrates a trend towards a higher emphasis on mixtures for respiratory conditions in NYC versus more mixtures for reproductive health and genitourinary conditions in the DR, especially in reports from specialists.
Respiratory conditions, reproductive health and genitourinary conditions were the main categories for which Dominicans use plant mixtures. Lay persons reported significantly more mixtures prepared as teas, mainly used in NYC to treat respiratory conditions. Specialists mentioned significantly more botellas , used most frequently in the DR to treat reproductive health and genitourinary conditions. Cluster analysis demonstrated that different plant species are used to treat respiratory conditions as compared to reproductive health and genitourinary conditions. Interview participants believed that combining plants in mixtures increases their potency and versatility as medicines. List health conditions according to the prevalence of mixtures in plant use reports .