Forty years of Brazilian medicinal plant research

Ethnopharmacology research in Brazil is a great challenge. The rich and varied

Brazilian flora has been progressively destroyed and the folk medicine,
a rich blend of Indian, African and European knowledge based on tropical medicinal
plants, is now modified by modern culture (Amorozo and Gely, 1988). In Brazil there
are five regions (Fig. 1) which have an abundance of native plants (Rizzini,
1979) that lack complete chemical and pharmacological studies (Matos, 1988).
The first region is the Amazon forest, roughly delimited by latitudes 0 and 12 S and
longitudes 48 and 74 W, with an average elevation of 100 m and an area of 3.4
million km2. This large and heterogeneous territory contains a large number of
new undescribed species (Schultes, 1979; Gentry, 1982). The loss of botanic resources
is astonishing.
A large area of over one million hectares (Anderson, 1989) of native forest has been
burned annually, particularly in southwest Amazon, Rondonia and Acre States (Setzer,
1990). The low population density (less than two inhabitants per km2) allows the
existence of places with a minimal influence of civilization. Some Indian tribes, like
Kaiapos (Elisabetsky and Posey, 1986), Tiriyo (Cavalcante and Frickel, 1973),
Tenharins (Di Corres~~e~ce to: Alba R.M. Souza Brito, Rua Maria Tereza Dias da
Silva 484, Cidade Universitaria I, 13083 Campinas SP, Brazil.
Stasi et al., 1989), have extensive experience with medicinal plants. The disastrous
contact of Indians with other ethnic groups (generally gold miners), has often destroyed
the native culture and brought new lethal diseases to unprotected Indians (Elisabetsky,
1986). Most of Brazilian ethnopharmacological research is concentrated in that region
(Prance, 1972; Furtado et al., 1978; Van den Berg, 1982; Branch and Silva, 1983;
Elisabetsky and Setzer, 1985).
The second region is the native Mata Atlfntica. It extends throughout almost 5000 km
along the coast, on a chain of short mountains (between 200 and 800 m above sea level),
reaching less than 100 km away from the Atlantic ocean. The condensation
of sea breezes produces a high rainfall (around 4000 mm/year) and, consequently, an
exuberante vegetation. Today, the small and poorly protected forests in the northeast are
cut down and used as firewood. An important botanic rea located in South Bahia and
Espirito Santo States has been destroyed (by lumbering) in the last 20 years. In the
southeast some preserved areas of native Mata Atlantica have been invaded by
tourism and industry. However, local envirommental organizations have succeeded in
achieving forest preservation in recent years. The Southern sea fishermen from small
villages (caicaras) are the main users of the medicinal plants of Mata Atlantica (Born
et al., 1990). The verbal transmission of medicinal plant lore, practised for generations,
does not exist anymore (Sirnoes et al., 1986). Except for limited reserves, the native
Mata Atlantica is extinct in the southern region.
The third region, named Cerrado, occupies 1.5 million km2 in the central-western
Brazil, with na elevation range of between 500 and 1000 m. It is a savanna-like
vegetation, usually with scattered trees and a grassy ground layer. Intensive farming
and reforestation have destroyed much of the native vegetation. In spite of the varied
and well known flora (Guimaraes Ferri, 197.5,1980) there are few studies (Hirschmann
and Arias, 1990) that have been undertaken on the pharmacological effects of medicinal
plants used in this region.
The fourth region is the Caatinga. it covers almost 1 million km2 and is the poorest
region. Its poor, eroded and stony soil has an average elevation of 100 m. The plants are
affected by long and irregular droughts. Due to low family income, the use of medicinal

plants and self medication are a popular practice in the northeast littoral area. The local
curandeiros are repositories of a rich verbal transmission of medicinal plant lore.
Medicinal
herbs consisting of varied plant parts, herbal or animal oils and garrafadas (bottled
alcoholic macerate of a blend of dried plants) are sold in stalls of weekly village fairs.
Despite the difficulties in tracking and identifying specific useful information,
these materials represent an interesting source for ethnopha~acological studies (Braga,
1960; Agra, 1980). The African lore of medicinal plants is present in the State of Bahia,
particularly around Salvador bay. The African-derived Umbanda and Candomble
religions use some plants and prayers in healing practices. A preliminar study (Almeida
et al., 1990) has attempted an inventory.
The fifth region, the Pantanal, has a fabulous fauna. It is a swamp ecosystem,
delimited to the northwest by Paraguay and to the southeast by the Miranda river. The
south Pantanal extends to Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina. Due to the low elevation
(around 100 m) the region is annually flooded by the Paraguay River. The cattle farms
are isolated, far from civilized facilities. Despite some river-water pollution by
pesticides or mercury, it is generally still a preserved area.
Ethnobotanical data on this region are scarce (Guarim Neto, 1987).
Some perspectives arise from the foregoing analysis:
(a) there is an urgent need for collecting, documenting and saving tropical botanical
resources;
(b) the actual ethnobotanical knowledge is insufficient to support interdisciplinary
research,
(c) the official medical system ignores medicinal plant therapy, which, in fact, is a
popular 55 practrce;
(d) most documented medicinal plant research concerning pharmacological activity is
lacking and restricted to local publications; and (e) a host of interesting interdisciplinary
problems are worthy of study by local and foreign researchers.
There is an increasing interest in studying medicinal plants in Brazil. Because of this,
the purpose of this paper is to discuss the status of medicinal plant research in Brazil
and to report its results to date. The Brazilian Foundation of Medicinal Plants,
stablished in 1986, was intended to assist and to be a co~unication channel for local and
foreign researchers.
Current status of medicinal plant research in Brazil
Brazilian medicinal plants have been documented since thelast century (Peckolt and
Peckolt, 1888-1914). Results of research have been presented in annual scientific
meetings of the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science since its foundation in
1949. In the last 20 years, the number of communications on medicinal plants
has increased at an annual rate of 8%. In spite of the present difficulties (Anderson,
1989), there has been a growing number of young scientists interested in medicinal
plants.
The current interest of the pharmaceutical industry is small, while the main research
effort has been supported by governmental agencies, such as CNPq (Conselho National
de Pesquisas), FINEP (Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos), FAPESP
(FundaGo de Amparo a Pesquisa no Estado de Sao Paulo), among others.
The use of phytotherapy in the mainstream health service has been introduced into
practice only recently in the States of Sao Paulo (Inoue, 1990), Parana (Perozin, 1990)
and Pernambuco (Caetano et al., 1990). The development of interdisciplinary
research projects, in spite of their importance (Malone, 1977; Waterman, 1990) is a

rare practice. Ethnobotanical investigations are restricted to some areas and do not cover
the complexity of Brazilian culture. The interaction between chemistry and
pharmacology of natural products is weak. In order to avoid repeated studies,
the Foundation has provided support to the development of a database of Brazilian
medicinal plant research. The analysis of this database shows that less than 10% of
biologically active extracts have been chemically investigated. On the other
hand, the isolation of new compounds from plants without the evaluation of their
pharmacological activity is a commom practice in Brazil, as elsewhere (Farnsworth and
Bingel, 1977).
Figure 2 presents the geographic distribution of medicinal plant research groups in
Brazil. It is interesting to note that the major research groups are located around Sao
Paulo city, an industrial region, far from the most interesting ethnopharmacological
regions described previously.
Structure of the medicinal plant database
Discussion on the coverage and importance of a natural product database has been
presented by Farnsworth (1984). However, the results of most research on the Brazilian
medicinal plants have been presented as communications in Brazilian meetings, in
Portuguese, and are limited to local publications. This database assembled together a
number of scattered scientific publications, but limited to those which contain
pharmacological studies and popular uses. There are a large number of studies related to
the chemistry of Brazilian natural products, but these are beyond the coverage of the
database. Since the practice of submitting abstracts on medicinal plant research to anual
scientific meetings has been regularly observed in Brazil since 1949; the period covered
by this database survey starts with that year.
The records, totaling 969 up to 1989, are based on documented summary of short
communications presented in the following Brazilian scientific meetings: (a) Brazilian
Society for The Progress of Science (SBPC) (Annual Meetings), 1949-1989 (41
vols.), (b) Brazilian Symposium on Medicinal Plants (Biannual Meetings), 1968-1988
(10 vols.), (c) Brazilian Symposium on Natural Products, 1980-1989 (2 vols.), (d)
Brazilian Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (SBFTE) (Annual
Meetings), 1982-1989 (8 ~01s.).
The following information is coded and entered into the database:
Plant species
Plant family
Plant local name
Part of plant used
Popular use
Type of extract
Pharmacological activity
Active chemical compound
Reference
The records contain only plants identified to species. When necessary, the author of a
particular paper was requested to complete this information.
There was no definite criterion used for the classification of pharmacological activities.
Sometimes, an activity pointed out by the author of na article was classified by simply
following the guidelines set down for this database (see below).
Research results obtained without rigorous scientific methodology or data which are
ambguos were not included. A program was written to access the database for rapid
consultation and original references are documented in the Foundations library.
Plants and plant families studied

A total of 402 different plant species (in 969 records, belonging to 286 genera,
distributed in 93 families) have been investigated. Except for a few species of
Polypodium (Polypodiaceae, Pteridophyta) all plants belong to the Angiospermae. Fig
me 3 shows the families most frequently studied relative to total records.
Species belonging to two families, Compositae (10.2%) and Leguminosae (13.9%),
comprise almost 25% of the total number studied. Two factors may have been
responsible for this phenomenon.
First, the popular use has influenced the choice of a plant for study. Furthermore, even
in the absence of ethnopharmacological studies, researchers take into account any
popular indication to start a particular study (Waterman, 1990).
Second, these families happen to be most abundantly represented in nature (Joly, 1975).
As pointed out by Thomson (1981), the popular knowledge of medicinal plants has been
developed through trial and error and transmitted verbally from one generation to the
next. Therefore, the more abundantly represented the families are, the more widely they
are quoted and, consequently, the more frequently they become the subject of
pharmacological studies.
Among the 402 species studied, 12 have more than 10 citations. Table 1 provides
information on the botanical and vernacular names and part of the plant used.
13 LABIATAE
14 APOCY NACEAE
15 EUPHORBIACEAE
16 COMPOSITAE
17 LEGUMIUOSAE
18 OTHERS
Pharmacological activities of these plants are summarized below.
Astronium urundeuva
A tree with a hard and resistant stem, whose wood is used for house-building. This plant
grows abundantly in the tropical northeast Mata Atlantica.
The use of this plant in traditional medicine against gastric ulcers (Braga, 1960) have
been supported by pharmacological and clinical studies (Menezes et al., 1986; Menezes
and Rao, 1988; Rao et al., 1987).
Mandevilla velutina
A herbaceous plant found in the southern Mata Atlantica and southeast Brazil. The
infusion of the rhizomes is taken orally as a popular remedy against rheumatic diseases,
including ferida brava (chronic lesion of the skin) and snake venom (Hirschmann and
Arias, 1990). The selective antagonism of the crude extract of M. velutina against the
action of bradykinin and its derivatives has been studied (Calixto et al., 1985; Calixto
and Yunes, 1986; Calixto et al., 1987; Calixto and Yunes, 1990). The antagonism of the
compounds.
Chemical com~unds isolated from plants with
pharmacological activity
A total of 93 compounds with one or more pharmacological effects have been isolated
from Brazilian flora and are recorded in the database. It is difficult to define which of
them are novel structures or which of them are potentially useful as new drugs. Table 3
shows in alphabetical order the family, species and active compounds isolated in recent
years.
An overview of these data in comparison with popular use leads to some
generalizations. Plants rich in essential oils are generally used to treat respiratory
diseases; plants rich in tannins have a large number of popular use as antiinflammatory

remedies; while plants rich in alkaloids and/or latex are frequently cited as toxic,
particularly members of the Solanaceae and Euphorbiaceae.
Less than 10% of 402 different species registered in the database have been subjected to
chemical investigation or have had an active pharmacological compound isolated.
Sometimes the biological investigation was performed only with crude plant material
without further inquiries on the diferente extracts or without further attempt in the
isolation of the active compounds. As pointed out earlier, the poor interaction between
chemistry and pharmacology researchers in Brazil is one of the reasons for this failure.
Additionally, many research groups have limited their work only to the confirmation or
negation of the efficacy of popular medicines. Few studies have addressed efforts to
the development of novel drugs.
On the basis of recorded data, it is difficult to establish any correlation between the
family of a plant and its pharmacological activity. However, an overall picture to
correlate major pharmacological activities against plant families studied is presented in
Table 4. The number of asterisks shows how frequently a therapeutic activity has been
found in a specific family. Each asterisk represents I5 citations for active plants in
that therapeutic class.
Discussion and Conclusions
A large number of uses for native medicinal plants is characteristic of many developing
countries; China (Farnsworth, 1976; Peigen, 1983) may serve as a good example.
Developing the medicinal potential of a plant into reality requires considerable
effort and knowledge of the phamacology of the local flora.
If we accept Tylers (1988) optimism, we believe that the most productive period of
Brazilian medicinal plant research still lies ahead. A number of factors justify this
optimism. First, more and more Brazilian research groups are becoming conscious
of the importance and diversity of this medicinal plant heritage. The number of new
investigators interested in interdisciplinary research on medicinal plants is increasing.
Second, in some Brazilian States, governmental projects are introducing the use of
phytotherapy into public health services.
Third, there is an emerging interest of the local pharmaceutical industries in medicines
originating from plants and lastly, there are important areas of research, such as
ethnopharmacology, which will attract more investigators, both local and foreign.
The need for adequate financial support for sufficiently long periods and for well
trained and experienced personnel in the execution of interdisciplinar research projects
are a challenge at present.
The database at the Brazilian Foundation of Medicinal Plants could give some hints to
new multidisciplinary research. Analysis of data shows the value of searching for
medicinal agents from plants based on documented history of folk use.