Plants and Medicine

PLANTS AND MEDICINE

Read the following text at home. Be sure you understand the
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Then, underline or highlight the FIVE main ideas in the text (BE
SURE YOU INCLUDE THE IDEAS IN BOLD LETTERS).
INTRODUCTION.
Since the first civilizations, it has been common that people use plants to
cure illnesses. Those plants are known as medicinal plants and nowadays
are usually related to spiritual events or religious sects.
However, medicinal plants used in the traditional way need to be
separated from the real investigation; in modern investigations plants are
modified to produce substances that can be used as medicines. This
separation does not mean modern investigations are better than
traditional medicinal plants. In fact, many of the investigations take
knowledge from the traditional use of plants.
The modern investigations, that modifies plants to produce medicines is a
type of biotechnology. Biotechnology combines biology and technology
to produce something useful for humans. In this case, biotechnology tries
to modify plants using technology to produce medicines to cure different
types of illnesses. Some examples of this investigations are modified plants
to try to cure malaria (transmitted by a mosquito bite) or HIV (a virus).
Frequently, using plants to produce medicines is cheaper than making pills
or injections without plants. This can help patients in developing countries
to get cured rapidly.

Plants and Medicine

PLANTS AND MEDICINE

Read the following text at home. Be sure you understand the
COMPLETE TEXT; if not, ask questions to the teacher.
Then, underline or highlight the FIVE main ideas in the text (BE
SURE YOU INCLUDE THE IDEAS IN BOLD LETTERS).
PLANTS USED TO CURE MALARIA - Lecture 1.
Malaria is one of the first causes of death every year. In 2015 malaria was
active in 96 countries around the world. Malaria is produced by the
mosquito bite that transmits the parasite (called Plasmodium). The
parasite is what kills humans.
However, most of the cases are concentrated in Africa. People living in
some African countries like Zimbabwe, live with a high probability of
suffering malaria. For that reason, African people use medicinal plants
trying to avoid dying from malaria. An investigation discovered that
people living in Zimbabwe use a total of 28 different plants against
malaria. These plants have to grow normally in Africa as people can not
buy them. One example of a plant used in Zimbabwe to cure malaria is
called Cassia abreviata. In the majority of cases the roots are the part of
the plant used to produce the medicine against malaria. The knowledge
about curing malaria with plants is taught by the oldest members in the
family.
The use of medicinal plants in Africa to cure malaria needs to be known in
other parts of the world. Consequently, these medicinal plants could be
used to start producing medicines and vaccines against malaria.

Plants and Medicine

PLANTS AND MEDICINE

Read the following text at home. Be sure you understand the
COMPLETE TEXT; if not, ask questions to the teacher.
Then, underline or highlight the FIVE main ideas in the text (BE
SURE YOU INCLUDE THE IDEAS IN BOLD LETTERS).
PLANTS USED TO CURE MALARIA - Lecture 2
Scientists are nowadays able to produce medicines from plants. They can
also produce vaccines from plants. Plant produced medicines and
vaccines are easy to take because the patient has to eat the specific part
of the plant where the vaccine/medicine is concentrated.
Malaria is a very important illness and killed 438000 people in 2015. Malaria
is transmitted by the bite of a mosquito (called Anopheles mosquito); the
mosquito bite has the parasite (called Plasmodium) that produces
Malaria. Many of the medicines produced to cure malaria are ineffective;
for that reason, plants offer an alternative to produce vaccines or
medicines and cure malaria.
The first malaria medicine that was produced using plants is called
Artemisina and comes from the sweet wormwood (scientific name:
Artemisia annua). It was produced in Europe in 1982 for the first time, but
it was difficult to produce big quantities of medicine at the beginning. The
objective of scientists now is to produce vaccines from the same plant
that can cure faster malaria.

Plants and Medicine

PLANTS AND MEDICINE

Read the following text at home. Be sure you understand the
COMPLETE TEXT; if not, ask questions to the teacher.
Then, underline or highlight the FIVE main ideas in the text (BE
SURE YOU INCLUDE THE IDEAS IN BOLD LETTERS).
PLANTS USED TO CURE HIV/AIDS - Lecture 1
Plants have a traditional use in some cultures as medicinal plants.
Nowadays, this knowledge is being used in laboratories to produce
medicines to cure illnesses.
This is the case of a plant called Sutherlandia frutescens. This plant grows
naturally in Africa. It has been used for many years as medicinal plant in
South Africa. However, scientists have recently discovered that it can be
used to cure HIV.
HIV is the one of the most common virus around the world nowadays. It is
spread around the world but the continent with more HIV cases is Africa.
There is no cure but there are different treatments to slow the progression
of HIV in patients. Nearly 2 million people in the world started a new
treatment against HIV in 2014.
In addition, the treatment to cure HIV using the African plant mentioned
(Sutherlandia frutescens) needs to be investigated before giving it to
patients. However, the first studies prove it works correctly. The use of this
African plant could be an alternative way to treat HIV in the future.

Plants and Medicine

PLANTS AND MEDICINE

Read the following text at home. Be sure you understand the
COMPLETE TEXT; if not, ask questions to the teacher.
Then, underline or highlight the FIVE main ideas in the text (BE
SURE YOU INCLUDE THE IDEAS IN BOLD LETTERS).
PLANTS USED TO CURE VIH/AIDS - Lecture 2
Human Immunodefiency Virus or HIV is a very common illness nowadays
around the world. HIV is a virus that is transmitted through body fluids
(blood, saliva, reproductive fluids). The virus can be inside a patient but
that person can show the symptoms many years later, because HIV is
inactive. For that reason, more than half of the patients of HIV know they
are infected with the virus. The main effect of HIV in the patient is that the
immune system stops working. As a consequence, the person can not
respond to any other illness.
In addition, HIV does not have a cure. Usually, people living in developed
countries can buy specific medicines to slow the symptoms. But people
living in some parts of the world (Africa, India and South America) can not
pay the prices for these medicines.
New investigations are done to use plants for the cure of HIV.

One

example is the use of the maligned tobacco plant and modify it to

produce a medicine to combat HIV. The function of the medicine
produced by tobacco plants is to stop the virus of HIV to pass from person
to person. Using the medicines produced by tobacco plants would be a
cheaper solution to stop HIV in developing countries. The use of tobacco
plants to combat HIV is still being tested.
The use of modified plants, as tobacco
plants to produce medicines against
HIV shows that plants can be also used
to cure illnesses.