JEDDAH, 1 June — Madagascar periwincle, botanically known as “Catharanthus roseus” synonym to “Vinca roseus” has a potential anticancer agent. It is growing in abundance in the gardens in Saudi Arabia as an ornamental plant.
Catharanthus roseus belongs to the family ‘apocynaceae’. It is native to Madagascar. Commonly known as Madagascar periwincle or Vinca. It is an all-year plant. The plants are about 60 cm tall with bright green smooth oval leaves. The flowers are round and flat with an eye in the center and their color may change. If the petals color is rose it is called vinca roseus if white vinca alba or with white red eye in the center and are very decorative. The flowering is profuse during summer and the rainy season.
Pruning is preferred in spring. The plant rapidly grows, and maintenance is not costly.
The only thing to be considered in maintaining the plants is to keep it safe from white flies, whose attack is very common on this plants. Rarely virus diseases are found. But once the plat is affected, the diseased plants should be uprooted and burned.
Madagascar periwincle has a long history as a medicinal plant dated back to 50th BC. According to folk medicine literature of Europe this plant has been mentioned as diuretic (enhancing urine flow), hemorrhage (preventing excessive blood flow from wounds), antidysentric and wound healing. In the folk lores of India and Jamaica this plant enjoys a reputation of curing diabetes from the dry leaves, which are used to prepare tea. The leaves are used in Australia, England, Philippines, South Africa and South Vietnam.
Catharanthus extract has a definite effect on white blood corpuscles (WBC). This factor attracted the Canadian scientists Noble, Beer and Cuttas to experiment on the plant and find out additional medicinal qualities in 1958.
It has been reported by authoritative journals that this plant helps in case of Leukemia (blood cancer) patients. It helps in increased bone marrow activity leading to an increase in WBC in the blood. From their experiments, the scientists had found that the leaf extract reduced white blood corpuscles of the blood.
The scientists found that water extract of 2 grams of dried leaves of this vinca plant caused a reduction in WBC count to below 10,000 in 3 to 4 days. The scientists attempted a chemical purification of the extract and this led to the isolation of vincaleukoblastine — an active anticancer drug.
Two other important alkaloidal drugs — Reserpine and Ajmalcine found in Madagascar periwinkle. Reserpine, by acting on the central nervous system, is capable of bringing down the high blood pressure (hypertension). These two alkaloids present in the leaves of this plant are presently available as prescription drugs.
In addition to being used in mediation used in the treatment of blood cancer, cancer of lymph glands and high blood pressure, catharanthus’ alkaloids are also known to have antimalaria, antihelmentic, antibacterial, antifertility and antidiabetic activity.
