Abstract
Background: Nature is God's gift to human beings. Natural products are a source of new chemical diversity and are the choice of today’s world. Nature itself gives remedy to all our health problems. The sources of natural product are plants, animals and microorganisms. Among them, plant and its products are more reliable for their renewability and therefore, considered as fortunate for human welfare. Our traditional system of medicine which has been followed by our ancestors has its own impact on human life. Due to the inadequate knowledge, many plant derived products (drugs) have not been explored yet to the society. We are having many side effects and long term complications in synthetic drugs. Our aim is to mine the precious data about the plant Argemone mexicana. Now-a-days, people prefer a drug which has no side effects. For that, the plant Argemone mexicana is a boon to the human being as it has a number of miraculous compounds to cure a various types of diseases. Single plant has a lot of uncountable benefits in drug discovery which gives a base for new drug discovery. This plant is a weed, easily available and it does not require any special care which forms the base to develop a drug in socio economic form so that it could be made available to all people. This chapter provides an insight into various interesting pharmacological properties viz., antidiabetic activity, anti-Cancer activity, anti-HIV activity, CNS related activities, wound recovering action, anti microbial activity, antioxidant activity, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antipyretic activity, hepatoprotective activity, anti-fertility activity, antiallergic activity, nematicidal activity, allelopathic effect, antihelmintic activity, larvicidal activity, antifeedant action etc., which have been reviewed from different studies in scientific journals.
Conclusion: This present review would kindle many of the young minds to turn towards nature i.e., plant based novel drug discovery with in-depth and extensive studies in all relevant aspects. Hence the paramount importance of this review about Argemone mexicana will be very much useful to the society.
Keywords: Argemone mexicana, papaveraceae, mexican prickly poppy, alkaloids, berberine, drug discovery.
Graphical Abstract
66
3
1
1