About the Bacopa Monnieri Plant?
Within recent years, herbal extracts in medicine are becoming more recognised as sources of treatments. With the COVID 19 pandemic, medical practitioners looked towards herbal medicine as a possible option for treatment due to the immune boosting properties of some herbal medicines (Agence France-Presse. 2020). Through combing allopathic medicine with plants, it could prove beneficial for infections and diseases.
Regarding the brain tumour Glioblastoma, researcher Tejas Athni discovered the potential for the bacopa monnieri plant to recede tumour growth (Athni. 2017).
Despite this current research, there has been much evidence of the bacopa monnieri plant in Ayurvedic medicine. Some limited research suggests how the bacopa monneiri plant has cognitive capabilities, such as memory retention, thinking skills, Alzheimer’s disease or mental health conditions such as anxiety and ADHD. This is due to the possibility for the Bacopa Monneiri plant to increase brain chemicals involved in these cognitive processes (WebMD. 2018).
Despite the limited evidence of the bacopa monnieri plant as a source for improved cognition, it does support the current research of the plant as a source for reducing brain tumour spread.
Studies along with Tejas Athni’s research, attests to the bacopa monnieri effectiveness in reducing tumour spread due to the component Bacoside A found in the plant (Aithal and Rajeswari. 2019).
It has been found that the Bacopa Monnieri plant has certain neuro-protective properties that improve the development of brain cells. The anti-cancer properties of the Bacoside A attests to the effectiveness of the plant as a treatment. The Bacoside A is classed as an anti-cancer property as it inhibits the DNA replication, fragmentation of the tumour, thus slowing down the spread (Aithal and Rajeswari. 2019).
Current treatments used for treatment Glioblastoma Multiforme, is usually radiation, chemotherapy (often Temozolomide) or brain tumour resection. Both harmful and somewhat invasive treatments, all to result in the same conclusion with only some slight increase in longevity.
The difference between the bacopa monnieri plant is the non-toxic and safe treatment, with very minimal side effects, such as fatigue, cramping, nausea and dry mouth (WebMD. 2018). Unlike the harmful side effects of chemotherapy such as, vomiting, constipation, loss of appetite, infection, headaches, bruising, bleeding gums, seizures, weaknesses on one side of your body, hair loss, etc. (Cancer Research, 2019).
Despite this promising study into the Bacopa Monieri plant as a tumour treatment, there still needs to be further research, such as the genetic alterations of Glioblastoma Multiforme as it grows and develops (Aithal and Rajeswari. 2019).
References
Agence France-Presse. (2020) The WHO Has Endorsed Testing Traditional Herbal Medicines Against Coronavirus. Science Alert, [online] 21st September 2020
Available at: https://www.sciencealert.com/who-has-endorsed-clinical-trials-for-treating-coronavirus-with-traditional-medicine
[Accessed: 15th February 2021]
Aithal, M. and Rajeswari, N. (2019). Bacoside A Induced Sub-G0 Arrest and Early Apoptosis in Human Glioblastoma Cell Line U-87 MG through Notch Signaling Pathway. Brain Tumour Research Treatment, Vol.7, (1), pp.25-32, [online]
Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6504756/
[Accessed: 27th July 2021]
Athni, T. (2017) Abstracts from the ASENT 19th Annual Meeting. Inhibiting the Proliferation of Patient-Derived Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) Using Leaf Extract of Bacopa Monnieri. (14) The American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics Inc. pp.811-812 [online]
Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13311-017-0543-x#citeas
[Accessed: 20th October 2020]
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Cancer Research. (2019) Temozolomide (Temodal), [online] 19th November 2019
Available at: https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancer-in-general/treatment/cancer-drugs/drugs/temozolomide
[Accessed: 29th July 2021]
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WebMD. (2018) Bacopa. Overview, [online]
Available at: https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-761/bacopa
[Accessed: 28th July 2021