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Asked by anon-44771 to Amelia, Izzy, Sarah on 19 Mar 2014.
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Sarah Harvey answered on 19 Mar 2014:
There are tonnes of plants which produce medicines! My favourites are:
Willow bark, which has been chewed on for pain relief for hundreds of years and contains compounds that synthetically produced aspirin is based on.
The Pacific yew tree whose bark contains a chemical called taxol, which can be used as a drug against breast and lung cancer (and possibly some other cancers too!)
The narrow-leaved tea-tree is also one of my favourites. The oil from this plant which you might have heard of tea-tree oil can be used against head lice and has antimicrobial properties so is also good for things like spots!
There are loads more though 🙂
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Amelia Frizell-Armitage answered on 19 Mar 2014:
Plants have been used for thousands of years to treat different illnesses, and there are loads of them.
Some more examples to add to Sarah’s:
Some species of magnolia can be used for cancer, dementia and heart disease.
A plant called hoodia from Nambia could help people lose weight.
Garlic can be taken to reduce cholesterol and prevent strokes and heart attack.
A plant called St John’s Wart has long been used to treat people that are depressed. A chemical the plant produces called hesperidin is now being investigated as a possible treatment for HIV.
A plant called Artemisia makes chemicals called Artemisinin which can be used to treat malaria. -
Isabel Webb answered on 19 Mar 2014:
Lots of plants make different chemicals useful in medicines. We often try and find was of recreating the reactions that happen in plants to make them happen in factories – this lets us mass-produce medicines.
A particularly important plant in cancer is the Madagascan periwinkle. It makes lots of medicines to help treat cancer and lots of scientists are investigating trying to use GM to make it make even more useful medicines.
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anon answered on 20 Mar 2014:
Eating a healthy diet of plant based foods like fruits and vegetables you might decrease the need to make as many medicines 😀
Comments
Sarah commented on :
Or did you mean which plant would be good to use GM to produce medicines?
Amelia commented on :
I guess you could genetically modify all of the plants we have listed to produce a better version of what they already produce, or more of it? I know there is research at the moment to try and produce Artemisia plants that are more efficient at producing the anti-malarial drug so that it can be produced more cheaply…
freezonechikwa commented on :
I Also Like a plant called Descidious Tree. Its Mostly found in Africa Because its used to cure malaria