Clinacanthus nutans, Yesterday's Practice, and Future’s Drug: A Comprehensive Review

Background: Clinacanthus nutans (CN) is individual from Acanthaceae, native to Southeast Asian countries. An herb with prominent therapeutic uses in treating cancer, inflammation, diabetes, renal dysfunction, digestive disorder, and snakebite. Base on the latest literature, this review aimed to provide a comprehensive review of ethnopharmacology, pharmacology, toxicology, phytochemistry, clinical applications of CN and finally the critical analysis of research findings.
Methods: Information about CN collected from an online database (Web of Science, Science direct, Scopus, EBSCO, Pub med, and Google scholar).
Results: The numbers of chemical compounds identified or isolated from leaves, and stem of CN are nearthirty-five. Crude preparations and isolated phytochemicals through in-vitro and in-vivo testing model exhibited significant antioxidant, anticancer, antiinflammatory, anti-analgesic, antibacterial antiviral, antivenom, immune response activity, with no toxicological effects. Further, CN in the form drinks, tea, or cosmetics products entered local and international markets.
Conclusions: The scientific research publications justify some of the traditional uses of this herb. Both positive and negative results recorded in the same testing model. The inconsistency in biological reports may be attributed to the source of the test article. More systematic research is warranted to construct finger print of CN and standardized test article to establish consistent preclinical and clinical data. Therefore, this review provides a valuable reference for future investigation on CN as herbal medicine.

Author(s): Elham Farsi, Aman Shah Abdul Majid and Amin Malik Shah Abdul Majid

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